111–120 of 311 posts
can we go after the real perp now?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Something something IP address" sort of evidence that the article describes doesn't seem to cut it.
All 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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Prosecution: Mister Klayme, the criminal messages were sent from a Kik username called "fus ro dah". What's your Kik username?
> Klayme: It's "fus ro dah".
> Prosecution: It logically follows that Mister Klayme was the sender, and is therefore guilty of the offense.
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
> 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 ci…
We know he's innocent, and he knows he's innocent, but how does he prove it?
All 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.
Insane. An LLM is just as likely to hallucinate a missing/extra underscore and ping the wrong person. A machine cannot be held accountable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The prosecution must still present evidence that proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. "Something something IP address" sort of evidence that the article describes doesn't seem to cut it.
Now this isn't universal; I've seen judges that encourage the jury to ask questions in open court (by submitting as notes to the judge who reads them out), for example. But that's very unusual. Judges who make a habit of questioning submitted evidence are likely to have their rulings challenged far more often and be accused of bias, even if they are superb jurists. And high status in the legal world goes to appellate judges whose rulings set legal precedent. Trial judges do get cool points for calling out bad lawyering and writing spicy opinions but this can also be a career anchor.
We are encouraged by civics classes and media to believe in courts as truth-finding institutions, but the reality is that most of the time they are engaged in argument-scoring. Even to the extent that they do pursue truth via the appellate process, it doesn't happen in a timely fashion. There's saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine, which goes back to the Roman empire: so you're looking at an institution that is historically so confident in its process that it has become divorced from any sense of urgency in its application.
We're really getting into Computers Don't Argue [0] territory here, eh? 0: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue (available in Best of Creative Computing Vol. 2 at https://dn790007.ca.archive.org/0/items/bestofcreativeco00ah... , p.133)
How does one vacate a sentence that was already served?
there's no time machine, but at least the charges are removed from the poor man's record. he should probably try to seek damages from the state for his wrongful conviction (and get his lawyer disbarred for grossly incompetent counsel!)
Klayme’s trial counsel was Peter Planetta, who no longer practises law.
see https://nsbs.org/general-notices/council-approves-resignatio...
[edit] Since his old lawyer wasn't practicing anymore, Klayme got a new lawyer who discovered the missing underscore.