How tf could he be convicted without any evidence??!?
A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
71–80 of 311 posts
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#72[deleted]
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#73What the article doesn’t mention, since this was an incorrect conviction that led to a served 18 month sentence, loss of income from the loss of whatever job he had, and likely life long reputational damage (as this kind of conviction now needs to be explained and some people will adopt a “where there’s smoke there’s fire” attitude…) was there any compensation for this man? It sounds like all he got was voiding the c…
Probably no compensation. Under "English" law (Canada is a Commonwealth country), the wrongful conviction will probably to taken to be without malice and reasonable given the information the US provided, so tough luck.
He might be able to negotiate an ex gratia payment, but this will be entirely at the whim of a politician, who will be looking to avoid being criticised for giving away government money
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#74[dead]
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#75The missing underscore didn't send an innocent man to prison. In this story, an incompetent lawyer, an incompetent judge, and an unjust system walked into a bar...
When the article says "he was found guilty" what does that even mean? "found" implies there was evidence. Throughout the article, it clearly says there was no evidence from all searches. What did they find? Not a pixelated picture, not an ip address, not even an AI auto classifying him as prime suspect.
What did the detective on the case have to say?
> Detective: "Yep, that's the user name"
> Partner: "What about the email, does it match?"
> Detective: "Email? what's that? Is that like a fax machine?"
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#76> Nothing linked Klayme to the girl. No intimate images were found. Klayme did have a Kik account, but cops couldn’t even show that he had accessed the service during the period in question. > Still, Klayme was arrested and hit with three charges: > Luring a person under 14 years of age by means of telecommunication > Providing sexually explicit material to a child > Possession of child pornography > The case went to…
[dead]
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#77> Nothing linked Klayme to the girl. No intimate images were found. Klayme did have a Kik account, but cops couldn’t even show that he had accessed the service during the period in question. > Still, Klayme was arrested and hit with three charges: > Luring a person under 14 years of age by means of telecommunication > Providing sexually explicit material to a child > Possession of child pornography > The case went to…
Unless the article left something out, the only possible evidence they had was
the wrong username.
It did. The evidence against him were the messages sent to the girl and the unusual username. It's not like it was John_Smith. It was fairly unique.
They couldn't even find evidence that this person used Kik at the time of the crime.
The lack of digital evidence is not proof of innocence. It's not proof of anything either way.
the wrong username
It's very likely the extra underscore was simply glossed over, the way a double space is glossed over. Lawyers aren't generally known for their grasp of computer technology. The lawyer probably saw this a hundred times, thought it was a typo on the subpoena, and didn't put two-and-two together to realize that it was material. After all, the employee at the website could have made the same error but in reverse; assuming that the double underscore was a typo. It's not on the judge, as the judge doesn't go through every piece of evidence checking all the typos; they take the evidence at face value and evaluate its probative value.
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
It all comes down to the jury, none of those things matter. The bigger issue here: he knew those messages weren’t him, so the lawyer should’ve gone full force to figure out how this happened. I would guess his lawyer didn’t really believe him
It was a judge, not a jury. And yeah, the trial lawyer failed to make the case, but if the defendant couldn't raise money for a defense, they he likely didn't have any experts to refute the prosecution's evidence.
"he likely didn't have any experts to refute the prosecution's evidence."
What evidence? They didn't have any other than a user name. An arm chair lawyer who watched too many shows could have created reasonable doubt.
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#79"A crime so serious that not even innocence is an acceptable defense" type stuff right here.
Honestly, this should be a gigantic scandal. The moment where you'd reevaluate how your entire justice system operates.
Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months
#80All of this boils down to an extra underscore in his username. It’s the type of thing I’d hope our LLM-powered future solves for the common man.
Catching typos like that would be load bearing for someone armed only with a public defender.