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Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

arstechnica.com

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Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#51

Post by leephillips »

hnriot wrote: post #36
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. That's a trope. In reality, the justice system is about striking a balance between the need to preserve order and security and the need to protect peoples' rights. That's why the Constitution uses "balance-y" words like "reasonable" when talking about 4th amendment rights. > I don't trust your friends view of clearly guilty, sounds like bias to m…

what a dangerous precedent you are setting, PD friends acting as judge and jury. Laws change, and there are often subtleties to a law that make rash statements made by some PD friend with likely no more than a GED about "clear guilt" absurd. Even the simplest of laws aren't clear when looked at in detail. This is why we have advocates with specific knowledge in these areas, and why judges hear briefs explaining the n…

"PD friend with likely no more than a GED"

PD here means "public defender": a lawyer. Did you perhaps think it meant "police dept"?

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#52

Post by tptacek »

leephillips wrote: post #51
hnriot wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a dangerous precedent you are setting, PD friends acting as judge and jury. Laws change, and there are often subtleties to a law that make rash statements made by some PD friend with likely no more than a GED about "clear guilt" absurd. Even the simplest of laws aren't clear when looked at in detail. This is why we have advocates with specific knowledge in these areas, and why judges hear briefs explaining the n…

"PD friend with likely no more than a GED" PD here means "public defender": a lawyer. Did you perhaps think it meant "police dept"?

He clearly did think that.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#53

Post by notJim »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #2

This seems like the first time in quite a while someone's rights have been protected (as far as what's in the news goes, anyway). Unless the guy is convicted, he still has all of those pesky things -- regardless of how obvious his guilt may or may not be to anyone -- and it's a lot better for all of us if they're actually taken seriously once in a while.

I served on a jury late last year [1] and the defendant invoked his 5th-amendment right. It was emphasized over and over again during the jury selection and in the instructions to the jury before we deliberated that we were not to hold this against him, and that it was his constitutional right. I feel confident that as the jury, we held to that.

[1]: By the way, if you get called for jury duty do not try to get out of it! It's an incredibly interesting and rewarding experience, not to mention the whole thing where it's your duty as a citizen.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#54

Post by agwa »

rayiner wrote: post #22
gnaritas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you don't see in the news is the zillions of times a day the system protects peoples' rights through criminal appeals, etc, and the massive overhead that arises from actual criminals abusing those protections in order to try and get out on technicalities. Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. > My friends who have clerked for judges talk about how frustrating it is to deal with…

> Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. That's a trope. In reality, the justice system is about striking a balance between the need to preserve order and security and the need to protect peoples' rights. That's why the Constitution uses "balance-y" words like "reasonable" when talking about 4th amendment rights. > I don't trust your friends view of clearly guilty, sounds like bias to m…

Why do your PD friends care so much about protecting the rights of their "clearly guilty" clients? It's because protecting the guilty's rights ensures the innocent's rights are protected too.

The trope here is the suggestion that criminals are getting off on technicalities. As you've illustrated with Miranda, even with the improperly-obtained evidence suppressed, he was still convicted. The government doesn't need to violate people's rights to keep criminals off the streets. And perhaps there would be fewer of those pesky appeals if the state did things right the first time.

Of course most 4th amendment decisions concern guilty people - the remedy for 4th amendment violations is suppression, so you never hear about the innocent people who are harassed by police with illegal searches - no evidence is found so there's no case with evidence to suppress! (Civil action is an uphill battle even for those who are able to bring it.)

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ScottBurson wrote: post #48
anigbrowl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the judicial system's responsibility is to produce convictions No, that's the responsibility of prosecutors. Trial courts are 'finders of fact,' whether or not those facts suit the prosecution.

Please read more closely before replying. You missed rhizome's point entirely.

[deleted]

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#56

Post by anigbrowl »

ScottBurson wrote: post #48
anigbrowl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the judicial system's responsibility is to produce convictions No, that's the responsibility of prosecutors. Trial courts are 'finders of fact,' whether or not those facts suit the prosecution.

Please read more closely before replying. You missed rhizome's point entirely.

I'm not sure that I agree with him about the widespread existence of this attitude, though.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#57

Post by rayiner »

agwa wrote: post #54
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. That's a trope. In reality, the justice system is about striking a balance between the need to preserve order and security and the need to protect peoples' rights. That's why the Constitution uses "balance-y" words like "reasonable" when talking about 4th amendment rights. > I don't trust your friends view of clearly guilty, sounds like bias to m…

Why do your PD friends care so much about protecting the rights of their "clearly guilty" clients? It's because protecting the guilty's rights ensures the innocent's rights are protected too. The trope here is the suggestion that criminals are getting off on technicalities. As you've illustrated with Miranda, even with the improperly-obtained evidence suppressed, he was still convicted. The government doesn't need to…

> Why do your PD friends care so much about protecting the rights of their "clearly guilty" clients? It's because protecting the guilty's rights ensures the innocent's rights are protected too.

It's not a matter of protecting the rights of guilty people or not, but determining how much to protect them. Every procedural protection has a cost. If a procedural protection might be invoked by a person who has a 10% chance of being innocent, then maybe it's worth the cost. If it's more likely to be invoked by a person who has a 1% chance of being innocent, then maybe it's not. Looking only at media reports gives you a distorted picture of what those probabilities are.

> The trope here is the suggestion that criminals are getting off on technicalities.

I didn't say they were getting off on technicalities. I said they were trying to get off on technicalities.

"Better to let a 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man go to jail" makes for good rhetoric, but even such flowery language implies a point at which its better to let 1 innocent man go to jail than let a certain number of guilty men go free.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#59

Post by gnaritas »

rayiner wrote: post #22
gnaritas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you don't see in the news is the zillions of times a day the system protects peoples' rights through criminal appeals, etc, and the massive overhead that arises from actual criminals abusing those protections in order to try and get out on technicalities. Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. > My friends who have clerked for judges talk about how frustrating it is to deal with…

> Good. Better criminals abuse the system than the system abuse people. That's a trope. In reality, the justice system is about striking a balance between the need to preserve order and security and the need to protect peoples' rights. That's why the Constitution uses "balance-y" words like "reasonable" when talking about 4th amendment rights. > I don't trust your friends view of clearly guilty, sounds like bias to m…

> I'm sorry to break it to you, but most people the police catch are "clearly guilty.

I'm sorry to break it to you, no they aren't; and I was a cop. Most cops don't give a rats ass if you're guilty or not, only if they get a bust, they're chasing numbers generally handed down unofficially through their supervisors and they have targets to hit. They care only that can bust you, not that they should or not and quite often ignore anything that might prevent them from getting a bust.

All cops; no, but a majority in my experience. I became a programmer because I couldn't stand being around them or socializing with them because they really are mostly dumb fucking pigs who don't give a shit about your rights.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#60

Post by rhizome »

anigbrowl wrote: post #56
ScottBurson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read more closely before replying. You missed rhizome's point entirely.

I'm not sure that I agree with him about the widespread existence of this attitude, though.

In a system that purports to consider suspects innocent until proven guilty, why is there stigma when the suspect is not proven guilty? The suspicion that they are actually guilty supersedes the idea that law enforcement (incl. the prosecutor) is fallible. The stigma derives from an authoritarian mindset in this way.
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