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A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

arstechnica.com

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Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#101

Post by anigbrowl »

jojobas wrote: post #94
anigbrowl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges generally do not evaluate the quality of evidence. Unless the defense challenges, it's assumed that the prosecutions claims are founded in fact. It doesn't matter if the prosecution alleges you did six impossible things before breakfast unless the defense disputes these allegations.

A judge that has no reasonable doubt with this sort of evidence has no business being a judge. We don't know what defense did in this trial but not picking up on the username mismatch and the assumed non-challenge of the evidence is telling as well.

In an adversarial system (which the US and Canada and UK are), the judge is not supposed to challenge evidence unless it's glaringly, obviously adrift from reality. That's the job of the defense lawyer. In civil law systems the roles of the judge and prosecutor are combined and responsility for bad decisions is distributed differently.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#102

Post by throw101010 »

shusaku wrote: post #45
Aurornis wrote: post #15

> 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…

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

> I would guess his lawyer didn’t really believe him

Then you'd ask to change lawyer. If they can apply a standard practice of care and do basic checks like matching a username and time of use because they don't "believe" you when you say these are not you messages, they are not doing their job as a lawyer.

I'd go as far as saying such basic checks not being done amount to negligence/malpractice, they might have a civil case against that lawyer.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#103

Post by marethyu »

> To identify this person, the cops contacted Kik, but their subpoena accidentally requested information about the Kik user “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). Kik provided Klayme’s email address in response.

> Google records showed that this email address was used to access Google services from an IP address in Canada, so the Dane County investigators turned the case over to Halifax Regional Police. Halifax police took the IP address they had been given to local Internet provider Bell Aliant. Bell connected the IP address to the physical address of their subscriber, Brandon Klayme.

This is startling to me as it shows how easy to pinpoint exact location based on email alone.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#104

Post by qingcharles »

thephyber wrote: post #66
shusaku wrote: post #45

Earlier 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.

I don't know about the Canadian justice system, but it's very hard in the USA for defendants to get expert witnesses. The state is supposed to pay, but it's almost never done, and when it is they pay bottom rate for the defendant while having unlimited funds for their own experts.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#105

Post by esafak »

marethyu wrote: post #103

> To identify this person, the cops contacted Kik, but their subpoena accidentally requested information about the Kik user “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). Kik provided Klayme’s email address in response. > Google records showed that this email address was used to access Google services from an IP address in Canada, so the Dane County investigators turned the case over to Halifax Regional Police. Halifax p…

Is it surprising? Every time you log in your IP is recorded, and the ISP can handle the rest.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#106

Post by qingcharles »

a34729t wrote: post #43

Ultimately the prosecutor should then go to jail for say 10x the time. Maybe that would make prosecutors less zealous?

AFAIK, only one prosecutor in the history of the USA has been jailed for malicious prosecution or intentional fabrication of evidence. And in this case there was no intent (that we know) to convict an innocent person, just wild incompetence, so likely just a stern talking-to from the head prosecutor is all they get.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#107

Post by qingcharles »

sterlind wrote: post #46
thephyber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find them, let us know. In the US public defenders don't have time to try cases. They are basically plea bargain assistants.

what happens if the defendant pleads not guilty? does the public defender not bother to show up to trial? do they not represent the defendant? what is this charade? I found the verdict here: https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nspc/doc/2024/2024nspc4/2024nsp... but no transcript is given. it has to be requested, it seems.

Public defenders will try your case if you demand trial; in fact, a lot of public defenders probably try more cases than paid attorneys.

The problem is that public defenders generally are starter defense attorneys, they're in the job to get experience so they can eventually quit and take a cushy private role. And secondly, they have very little time to allocate to each case; if the defendant is stuck in jail, then they have even less time to visit the defendant and prepare any kind of useful defense or trial strategy.

A public defender's primary strategy for their client is to, sadly, negotiate the best possible plea deal in the shortest amount of time to get the case off the docket.

(This might actually be in the best interests of the defendant; most defendants are guilty of something in the charging document, even if not everything they've been likely over-charged with; the justice system isn't quite so broken that it scoops up a huge number of factually innocent persons)

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#108

Post by qingcharles »

thephyber wrote: post #23
whiterock wrote: post #5

Perhaps there should be input fields that are paste-only, no typing allowed (or only with extra modal warnings).

Who is "they"? Police generally have to send faxes to companies for subpoenas, except for the few mega techs who have digital portals built specifically for police subpoenas. Source: I worked for a company who received subpoenas via fax.

You're right. AFAIK it's still mostly done via fax. All the subpoenas I see are fax copies.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#109

Post by fsckboy »

protocolture wrote: post #97
fsckboy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theres no one technical in a court room. oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake. Rather than ban the use of paper, how about technical people ban fonts (designed by clueless font designers) that blend multiple underscores together?

>oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake. A technical person did make the mistake, likely a police cyber forensics type. But there's no one technical in the court room capable of reviewing their work and identifying the fault.

technical people developed the systems that print out confusing glyphs. it's certainly nobody else's fault.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#110

Post by qingcharles »

joeframbach wrote: post #27

How does one vacate a sentence that was already served?

He's lucky. In the USA a lot of appellate options are not available if you are no longer incarcerated. You are basically out of luck, the conviction is a lock-in.
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