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3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

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Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#101

Post by late2part »

300bps wrote: post #48
tptacek wrote: post #2

The Appeals Court acknowledged that there were lots of issues at play in the appeal, but that they only had to judge one of them to vacate the conviction. The prosecutors selected New Jersey as the venue for the case, despite the fact that Aurnheimer and his co-conspirators hadn't been located in NJ, and AT&T's servers weren't in NJ. The rationale was that some of the addresses disclosed belonged to NJ residents. Not…

The rationale was that some of the addresses disclosed belonged to NJ residents. I guess he should be tried in every state and several other countries then to account for the 114,000 people that were part of the list. Reading the appellate ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton's decisions make her seem like she's off her rocker. Beyond that, it's amazing how he was treated in court by the judge: As [the prosecut…

Careful there, tiger...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Jeopardy_Clause#Dual_sov...

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#102

Post by late2part »

dobbsbob wrote: post #90
300bps wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale was that some of the addresses disclosed belonged to NJ residents. I guess he should be tried in every state and several other countries then to account for the 114,000 people that were part of the list. Reading the appellate ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton's decisions make her seem like she's off her rocker. Beyond that, it's amazing how he was treated in court by the judge: As [the prosecut…

Though his testimony was hilarious, as the trial was an obvious farce "What do you do for a living?" "P/T disaster response" he actually talked himself into a bogus conviction by handing the prosecutor everything needed to twist his statements around to the jury. His trial is a good lesson in not underestimating the skill of a lawyer to manipulate banal statements into perceived admissions of guilt or intent. He shou…

I don't think this can be publicized enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

"An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police. "

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#103

Post by late2part »

aroch wrote: post #76
Nursie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think that everyone who ever has a conviction overturned should be compensated for all time lost and costs incurred. Not because the state would be dissuaded from pushing edge-cases but because we, the people, have robbed someone of part of their life. We should make it right.

This wasn't just an overturned verdict, this was a vacation due to process which is different. Most states offer compensation packages to those wrongly incarcerated. Its usually a percentage of your expected income if you hadn't been put in jail

This rhymes with vacate:

"An error regarding venue exhibits many of the characteristics of structural error. If the District Court had found venue lacking upon Auernheimer’s motion to dismiss, there would have been no trial in New Jersey at all"

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#104

Post by dalke »

marvin wrote: post #91
dalke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the direct link. The document isn't dense. I found it pretty straight-forward, actually. It isn't short, but unless you are a member of the "tl;dr" contingent, the gist is pretty easy to discern. The trick is that things like "Count one charged Auernheimer with conspiracy to violate CFAA § 1030(a)(2)(C) and (c)(2)(B)(ii)" translate to "Count one charged Auernheimer for breaking a law" and things like "See Pe…

I don't even know who weev is, much less that he was convicted for something, when this happened and why. A tl;dr would be much preferable to reading the court documents with no context.

I think it's fair to say that if you don't know who weev is, then very little about the case would interest you, including a summary of the legal decision.

Similarly, there's a posting now titled "Finally, usable GCM cipher suites in SChannel" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7574678 ). I don't know what a GCM cipher suite is, nor what SChannel is, nor why it's a relief that this has happened. The link itself is not insightful. While it expands GCM as "Galois/counter mode", that's meaningless to me.

BTW, in this case, 'weev' matches some 63 other HN posts, though several provide no more summarized context than this link text. (Eg, a couple of other posts directly to other legal documents, a story about visiting weev in prison, and a letter from weev while in prison.) A Google, Yahoo, and Bing search all return http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weev as the first hit. Perhaps one of those can provide the background you're looking for?

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#105

Post by farinasa »

badman_ting wrote: post #84
letrerrr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has it made, expect a multimillion settlement on the dime of the US taxpayer.

If that ever comes to pass (nope), perhaps the US taxpayer should have thought twice about prosecuting him.

Right because we all chose this.

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#106

Post by badman_ting »

farinasa wrote: post #105
badman_ting wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that ever comes to pass (nope), perhaps the US taxpayer should have thought twice about prosecuting him.

Right because we all chose this.

I sympathize. That's how I feel about our recent wars, among other things. But I'm paying for them anyway, and will be for the foreseeable future. Sucks.

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#107

Post by eliteraspberrie »

rdl wrote: post #27

Does weev get any compensation? I get that he's now retroactively never been convicted of a felony, but he was in prison focused on protecting his corn bread for a couple years. Clearly this affects his employability, as well as his general happiness, having been deprived of both liberty and safe corn bread for a while. Civil suit against ATT? Wrongful prosecution against the feds?

People who are wrongfully charged have no recourse, except in the most egregious or best publicized cases. It's even a police tactic to charge someone as a punishment in itself. His best option now is to move on with his life, success will bring him closure.

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#108

Post by Chirael »

late2part wrote: post #102
dobbsbob wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though his testimony was hilarious, as the trial was an obvious farce "What do you do for a living?" "P/T disaster response" he actually talked himself into a bogus conviction by handing the prosecutor everything needed to twist his statements around to the jury. His trial is a good lesson in not underestimating the skill of a lawyer to manipulate banal statements into perceived admissions of guilt or intent. He shou…

I don't think this can be publicized enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc "An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police. "

Yes, and it's entertaining too - very well done

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#109

Post by DominoTree »

eli wrote: post #56
rdl wrote: post #27

Does weev get any compensation? I get that he's now retroactively never been convicted of a felony, but he was in prison focused on protecting his corn bread for a couple years. Clearly this affects his employability, as well as his general happiness, having been deprived of both liberty and safe corn bread for a while. Civil suit against ATT? Wrongful prosecution against the feds?

He was incarcerated because a Grand Jury thought there was enough evidence to charge him.

As someone who was questioned by the AUSA and FBI in front of that federal grand jury, from the onset of things, the prosecution wasn't interested in finding justice, only in twisting everyone's words as much as necessary to secure an indictment, and later, a conviction.

Re: 3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

#110

Post by Bluestrike2 »

dobbsbob wrote: post #90
300bps wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale was that some of the addresses disclosed belonged to NJ residents. I guess he should be tried in every state and several other countries then to account for the 114,000 people that were part of the list. Reading the appellate ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton's decisions make her seem like she's off her rocker. Beyond that, it's amazing how he was treated in court by the judge: As [the prosecut…

Though his testimony was hilarious, as the trial was an obvious farce "What do you do for a living?" "P/T disaster response" he actually talked himself into a bogus conviction by handing the prosecutor everything needed to twist his statements around to the jury. His trial is a good lesson in not underestimating the skill of a lawyer to manipulate banal statements into perceived admissions of guilt or intent. He shou…

I remember wincing when I first read the transcript. Weev was his own worst enemy at that point, and as he proceeded to fall apart on the stand, his testimony become more and more damaging: at best, he came off as evasive, sarcastic, and arrogant. From there, it was as easy as pie for the prosecutor to paint him as having something to hide. An impression which, unfortunately, weev actively contributed to.

It's not fair, but there's a reason why most defendants don't testify on their own behalf: they are, almost always, seated too close to the matter and unable to come across as objective.

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