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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

#261

Post by thephyber »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #153
thephyber wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, but your parent is right too. If the police logged into his Kik account from his device, they would have seen the lack of connection to the case. If they simply trusted the Kik account contents from the subpoena response, then it was up to the defendant/experts to identify the issue and rebut the evidence.

IDK if you know much about kik but the only way this makes any sense is - I suspect he might have had other incriminating messages on his actual account he chose not to reveal.

That is a hazard of the way evidence is collected for cases. If the state has a warrant and they find evidence of another crime while executing the warrant, that might be used to bring more charges. I don't know enough about law to know under what conditions it may be used or must be ignored.

But also, I read the article where it said that no corroborating evidence of any crime was found when searching his house or devices, so I suspect his Kik account is not likely to be full of illegal content if his other possessions weren't.

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

#262

Post by qingcharles »

thephyber wrote: post #251
qingcharles wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've known and hung out with a lot of prosecutors. I've never heard one say anything like that outright, but , one of the main issues is that in 99.9% of cases the evidence will not be looked at. They are just not given the time and resources to even take a single glance at the police reports, never mind any forensic evidence. They literally have no idea whether the person is guilty or innocent when they offer a plea…

In the US legal system, the defense isn't given access to the prosecution's evidence used in the case immediately. In fact, lots of plea bargains happen before the defense attorney knows for sure what evidence there is to tie their client to the crime.

Absolutely. Defense usually has to file a motion, then god forbid the evidence is something like an obscure-format security video; nobody will ever figure out how to get it to the defense or how to play it back.

Most plea bargains are done simply based on the charging instruments.

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

#263

Post by ktallett »

yieldcrv wrote: post #232
ktallett wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I am not sure Saudi Arabia can hold the moral high ground and this is definitely not the way to do it.

It was their turn on the UN seat and they were correct Was it an incorrect message if a different country’s delegate said it?

No, but they need to perhaps be more open on their human rights and 9/11 first as well. They can accuse another country who at least will admit they got it wrong. I don't see Saudi doing the same.

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

#264

Post by yieldcrv »

ktallett wrote: post #263
yieldcrv wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was their turn on the UN seat and they were correct Was it an incorrect message if a different country’s delegate said it?

No, but they need to perhaps be more open on their human rights and 9/11 first as well. They can accuse another country who at least will admit they got it wrong. I don't see Saudi doing the same.

Like I wrote, separate the message from the messenger otherwise you would have no idea that Canada is railroading people because you’re waiting for the infallible messenger

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

#265

Post by illliillll »

tomhow wrote: post #252
illliillll wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s absurd. The standard in Canada is “beyond a reasonable doubt”, a standard which does not leave much room for “honest, human mistakes” if you actually take it seriously. If the judge bothered to review the evidence, he’d presumably have been baffled by the fact that nothing has been recovered from the defendant connecting him to the crime. This judge chose to not do that and chose not to be baffled, that wasn’t…

Could you please stop posting ragey comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. It's not okay to assert that anyone “deserves a bullet in the head” here, for any reason. In the case in question, clearly the system, and multiple people within it, failed to notice the issue. On HN we expect people to be thoughtful and curious, and ”…

Tom, you live in a democratic country where the death penalty is codified in law as a legitimate punishment for certain crimes.

What is it in the guidelines that should keep me from arguing in favour of expanding the scope of such penalties to also cover other, perhaps more harmful behaviour?

> is a barbaric, medieval reaction to a modern scenario.

You are inherently calling US voters at large barbarians and medieval here.

You may not share my views on how misconduct by judicial officials should be treated, but you can hardly condemn my opinion as illegitimate given the country you choose to live and pay taxes in. Taxes which fund executions carried out by your government.

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

#266

Post by account42 »

jibal wrote: post #124
bizzletk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the lawyer would say "okay, help me prove you didn't send these messages" We know he's innocent, and he knows he's innocent, but how does he prove it?

He doesn't have to prove that he didn't send them ... that's the prosecution's burden. (In the U.S. ... I know nothing about Canadian law.) But a competent lawyer could figure out how to prove it: get ahold of the IP address from which the messages were sent. Oh look, it was in California! (The IP address they had was from the email address with which Klayme had registered his Kik account with the mistranscribed name…

Why do you assume that the IP that sent the messages was recorded. They the police went after the email at least suggests that it wasn't in the data that Kik provided during the police investigation.

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

#267

Post by account42 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #152
oersted wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not an unusual username, it is actually quite unoriginal, there are probably thousands of users with variations of the same name. It is the name of the headline magic ability in Skyrim, which is probably among the top ten most popular videogames of the last 25 years.

Since the introduction of the Skyrim game in 2011, UrbanDictionary has also indicated that the specific phrase is a term for fellatio. Just sayin'

UrbanDictionary has a lot of terms that are maybe used by one friend group who thought it would be funny to add it to the site.

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

#268

Post by account42 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #192
oersted wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that certain segments of the population have remained completely disassociated from videogames, and that's fine, but that doesn't make it a niche or an expert topic. Games make significantly more money than movies and TV now. More than 65M people bought Skyrim, and many more millions would recognise Fus-Ro-Dah just from spending time on the Internet anywhere near to gaming circles. The defendant could ha…

> Games make significantly more money than movies and TV now Don't wanna accuse you of anything, but why would you assume thats an important metric for HN populace. I assume most people here don't own a TV to begin with (personal projection obvs).

In $current_year you can watch movies and TV shows without owning a TV.

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

#269

Post by account42 »

nl wrote: post #57
crazygringo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is an atrocious article. It makes no sense as presented. The first thing the records should have shown was the full messaging history which would not have contained any of the incriminating messages. But even if the messages no longer existed, there was no actual evidence. Truly, what on earth did the defense argue? How on earth was the jury convinced he was guilty? Everything important about this story is…

> The first thing the records should have shown was the full messaging history which would not have contained any of the incriminating messages. I think the point is that the message history would show incriminating messages. He'd have been saying "this isn't me", but somehow no one noticed it was the wrong username.

I think part of the confusion is also that the defense didn't disclaim the account was his but claimed that the account was hacked, which implies agreement that the account is his.

Still pretty flimsy evidence when they had voice recordings and pictures sent by the real culprit that surely didn't match the accused.

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

#270

Post by account42 »

femto wrote: post #73
Macha wrote: post #16

What 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

> the wrongful conviction will probably to taken to be without malice and reasonable given the information the US provided, so tough luck

Now imagine if this same standard was applied to individuals doing reckless but not inherently malicious things.

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