Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness • Hacker News Board

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#51

Post by dahfizz » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #25

willcipriano wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a harder problem that. Secrecy in courts is a tool often used by totalitarian dictatorships, a blanket objection to that sort of thing may actually do more good than harm. In a practical sense I totally agree with omitting addresses specifically but I also understand the skepticism of any reduction of transparency in the courts.

It's not secrecy, you can be totally transparent about who is involved without revealing their residential address. Courts don't post SSNs and bank account numbers in their transcripts, and residential addresses should be treated with the same level of privacy.

According to [1], you can request a transcript be redacted if it contains "the home address of an individual (applicable to criminal cases only)".

It also looks like the onus is on you (or your attorney) to request the redaction. I think its highly likely that she didn't care in this case - people don't really care about privacy as much as HN does. Her abuser went to jail. Worrying that some rando will start harassing her because of this court proceeding (and not from her Facebook, or a phone book, etc etc) is bordering on paranoia.

[1] https://www.ned.uscourts.gov/internetDocs/pom/tran_redaction...

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#52

Post by wjko21 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

Hackwar wrote: post #41

jdavis703 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other solution seems to be endangering the general public by opening the courts in a pandemic or to start having secret courts. Neither are particularly compelling. Far less people were assaulted in the US than died of coronavirus, and even fewer were assaulted for witness intimidation. And a secret court is obviously bad for a rules based democracy.

You can censor live events for nuisances like strong language or nudity, but you can't protect the privacy of victims? You would be absolutely astonished, how many women are intimidated/assaulted each year. The infection rates of covid pale against that.

I'm not sure why is it that you only mention "women" here, are you implying men are never assaulted?

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#53

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #45

sovietmudkipz wrote: post #11

I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly. This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.

> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public…

> Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives.

...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#54

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #35

notananthem wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the cases being streamed on the internet?

Criminal court proceedings are normally open to public by default in many jurisdictions. The idea being that law is applied in public to keep process in check, unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so.

...and with public viewing galleries in courts closed or access-limited due to covid, live-streaming over the Internet is the straightforward replacement.

Though there is a substantial difference between having an modestly-sized, in-person audience of dispassionate local journalists, plaintiffs, relatives and the occasional curious member of the public - and having potentially thousands of Internet gawkers and potential doxxers. Especially in cases like rape/sexual-assault and the like: there's definitely a public-interest (for the accused, the victim, the guilty and the innocent alike) in having a limited audience.

...can/would any judges agree to limit the public streaming audience to a smaller number in those cases?

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#55

Post by leephillips » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #50

leephillips wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m baffled, myself. Everyone lives somewhere. I don’t see how knowing someone’s address creates a hazard from random people . If a lunatic wants to assault someone he can kick in a random door. In the case of someone, say, testifying against the mob or against a violent person who doesn’t already know where she lives, sure.

You underestimate the amount of crazy living on the internet. There are a lot of misogynistic incels that think most women claiming to be abused are lying. I could easily see one of them being crazy enough to SWAT her in retaliation. Is it likely? Probably not. But considering we've had mass shooters who have cited their inceldom as their motive, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

Your scenario had occurred to me, and it’s not wildly improbable. But I don’t think we should form public policy, especially if our adjustments might be disharmonious with the Constitution, on the basis of any scenarios that we can dream up. In this case the accused already knows where she lives, and any imagined affect on her security by publishing her address depends on supposition.

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#56

Post by tclancy » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #45

sovietmudkipz wrote: post #11

I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly. This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.

> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public…

>Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing

I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is harder.

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#57

Post by himinlomax » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #45

sovietmudkipz wrote: post #11

I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly. This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.

> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public…

Why do you assume it's the upbringing? It could be any kind of brain injury, in utero or post birth, heavy metal poisoning or simply genetic. This kind of behavior does not strike me as learned but rather as a deficiency. On top of that the defendant looks rather dumb.

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#58

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #9

Two weeks later: > “I’d like to fire my attorney and represent myself for the rest of this case, please, because he hasn’t done anything that I’ve asked him,” Harris said. “I asked, I sent him a whole paper of questions to ask her and I asked him to come see me before this court date. He hasn’t. Paul Gipson’s a bum a* dude, and he should not practice this profession ‘cause he’s not doing anything for –” https://www.y…

Relevant despite cartoon overlay. State of Georgia Vs. Denver Fenton Allen. The transcript is pretty bananas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vN_PEmeKb0

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#59

Post by wizzwizz4 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #55

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You underestimate the amount of crazy living on the internet. There are a lot of misogynistic incels that think most women claiming to be abused are lying. I could easily see one of them being crazy enough to SWAT her in retaliation. Is it likely? Probably not. But considering we've had mass shooters who have cited their inceldom as their motive, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

Your scenario had occurred to me, and it’s not wildly improbable. But I don’t think we should form public policy, especially if our adjustments might be disharmonious with the Constitution, on the basis of any scenarios that we can dream up. In this case the accused already knows where she lives, and any imagined affect on her security by publishing her address depends on supposition.

We should form public policy on the basis of evidence – that is to say, models that have high explanatory power and confidently predict reality correctly.

We have policy around nuclear attacks that aren't based on actual nuclear attacks. There are policies around preventing certain people from being assassinated even if nobody's assassinated them yet. If “swatting” is something that we know happens in this sort of case, we should review our procedures around preventing it if circumstances change in a way that we could reasonably expect would increase swatting.

Re: Zoom court hearing postponed after accused found in same location as witness

#60

Post by rossdavidh » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #31

yreg wrote: post #28

There is a community around watching court cases at /r/zoomcourt Judge Middleton and Deborah Davis (the attorney) from this case are very popular over there. She is even a member of the subreddit IIRC.

My understanding is that only judges can share these recordings because it would be an ethical violation for the lawyers to do it, but I wonder, why isn't it an ethical issue for the Judge?

Well in ordinary circumstances it is often allowed for the public to be in the courtroom (not always, obviously), so I would think that the judge would apply the same criteria? IANAL.