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3rd Circuit vacates Weev's conviction [pdf]

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

#81

Post by otterley »

pcwalton wrote: post #68
otterley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement makes no sense whatsoever to me. (And I am an attorney.) Venue is a procedural, not a substantive matter.

A quote from the opinion mentioned in another comment: "To enhance the potential punishment from a misdemeanor to a felony, the Government alleged that Auernheimer’s CFAA violation occurred in furtherance of a violation of New Jersey’s computer crime statute, N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:20-31(a)"

I think we're all in violent agreement here.

In order to adjudicate the substantive matter in the case, proper procedure must first be assured, which includes assuring jurisdiction and venue are proper for the case before the Court. My point here is that the question of whether the law applied was never analyzed by the appellate court because it found the venue was faulty.

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

#82

Post by fleitz »

unreal37 wrote: post #55
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?

After reading the judgement, seems like the right decision was made to overturn the conviction based on venue. But compensation? Come on. He would still be convicted of some of the computer hacking charges in other states. Didn't his co-accused plead guilty to those charges? What happens to him?

Yeah, you should at least get your costs back.

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

#84

Post by badman_ting »

letrerrr wrote: post #72
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 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.

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

#85

Post by dalke »

mpclark wrote: post #70
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…

Heavens no! I'd much rather have a good summary than dive into documents written for domain specialists by other domain specialists. For legal documents, research studies, academic papers and the like the cognitive load associated with wading through the original usually by far outweighs the marginal return. The caveat is, of course, that one must be careful with one's choice of summariser.

Did you find this court judgment "dense"? I didn't. I even found the judgment's summary of the case against weev to be clear and informative, and others here agree.

I encourage you to read court decisions, research studies, and academic papers. Many are clear, insightful, and educational. It's also true that many are not, but I'm astonished by the number of people who don't even try.

At the very least, it's hard to judge the summarizer without sometimes comparing summaries to the primary literature.

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

#86

Post by tptacek »

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.

In other words, he exceeded the "ham sandwich" threshold.

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

#87

Post by beambot »

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

A percentage!? That doesn't even come close. Perhaps a multiple is more fitting.

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

#88

Post by ryandrake »

amitparikh wrote: post #39

I find it fascinating that the precedent for the decision -- to vacate charges due to improper venue -- is established by the court by going all the way back to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The proper place of colonial trials was so important to the founding generation that it was listed as a grievance in the Declaration of Independence. See The Declaration of Independence para. 21 (U.S. 1776…

How does this square with the jurisdiction shopping that patent trolls do, to their great advantage. Somehow, everyone who infringes on a patent does so while in the eastern district of Texas?

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

#90

Post by dobbsbob »

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…

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 shouldn't have testified at all and just let some expert explain there's nothing illegal about what he was accused of. He rambled about SIM cloning and everything basically playing into their hands.
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