6 ms·

While the cause seems legit, I wonder if this case is appropriate for it? The evidence seems pretty damning... Or am I missing something?

by Drdrdrq 10y ago

snvzz 10y ago
What specific evidence are you referring to?
- burkaman 10y ago
  Looking up the case, the evidence seems to be: - Defendant lied about getting into Harvard Business School, lied about being employed, was actually very in debt, and his wife had a $250,000 life insurance policy - Defendant immediately fled the state after his wife died, leaving behind lots of expensive property, and soon started dating someone new - Defendant had apparently kept insisting that his wife really liked Gatorade, which people who knew her found odd, and Gatorade is a good medium to hide the taste of antifreeze - Wife was not suicidal, and had medical training, so she would have known that antifreeze is a terrible way to kill yourself - Investigators found various searches for homemade poisons, including antifreeze, on the defendant's laptop Some jury members said the laptop evidence was what convinced them. It is conceivable that the sentence would be overturned if the laptop evidence is suppressed, which is what EFF wants.
  - eplanit 10y ago
    > - Investigators found various searches for homemade poisons, including antifreeze, on the defendant's laptop > Some jury members said the laptop evidence was what convinced them. It's almost funny how often this is the Achilles's heel of murderers. In so many "Forensic Files" episodes the culprits' browser/search history is what nails them.
    - jcranmer 10y ago
      Apparently, the report that Casey Jones did 84 searches for chloroform was based on a misreading of the mork file format (see https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/07/mork-keeps-on-giving-when-the-database-worms-eat-into-your-murder-trial/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/07/mork-keeps-on-giving-when-t..., although you'll want to type that out yourself rather than click the link). The competence of people doing this sort of discovery is not unquestionable.
      - wallace_f 10y ago
        >although you'll want to type that out yourself rather than click the link Sorry if this sounds naive... why?
        jcranmer 10y ago
        Because jwz doesn't allow click-throughs to his blog from hacker news.
burkaman 10y ago
Well, if you think a particular practice is illegal, you should think it's illegal all the time, even when it's used against people who are clearly guilty. This is somewhat comparable to the ACLU defending the KKK. Everybody has rights, and you legitimize your cause when you fight for everyone, not just when it's comfortable. And more practically, a case with the right details does not appear in a state supreme court very often. EFF wants to set a precedent, so they need to take whatever opportunity presents itself.
- bsimpson 10y ago
  Seems to me like there are two angles to it: - Yes, the law should apply equally to the guilty and innocent: the KKK has the right to free speech, and this asshole has 4th amendment rights requiring a warrant before his effects can be searched. According to the article, there was one. - If you want to make an argument about nuance, do it in a venue where nuance is appropriate. This guy got caught murdering his wife, using evidence obtained from a warrant. The EFF is arguing that the warrant should have been more specific. Perhaps, but this is the wrong case to try to establish that precedence on. It's human nature to want justice, and letting someone off on a technicality is an affront to justice. If everyone knew that this technicality existed, it's a reasonable defense to use. However, to argue for the existence of a technicality where one doesn't already exist flies in the face of our fundamental desire for the world to be a fair place. I suspect that makes it a much harder case to win, because at the end of the day, someone's going to be thinking "but it let THIS ASSHOLE off? No, that's not OK."
  - burkaman 10y ago
    I understand that position, but I think the practicality argument is important here. These kinds of cases don't appear in Supreme Courts very often, and furthermore if EFF doesn't intervene and the conviction is upheld, that sets a precedent going the other way. Every chance they ignore makes their future chances much more difficult. Also, I don't think he'll be "let off" regardless of what happens. He's been in jail for 12 years, and if successful here he'll get a new trial, not be immediately released. I'm not a lawyer, but I think the case against him is still fairly strong without the laptop evidence, which was circumstantial like everything else.
gleenn 10y ago
It has the upside of setting a strong precedent: the guy might be totally guilty but if the EFF can prove the search was overly broad, when cases are less clear then it would be more obvious to protect the privacy of the defendant.

While the cause seems legit, I wonder if this case is appropriate for it? The evidence seems pretty damning... Or am I missing something?

by Drdrdrq 10y ago

While the cause seems legit, I wonder if this case is appropriate for it? The evidence seems pretty damning... Or am I missing something?

snvzz 10y ago

What specific evidence are you referring to?

burkaman 10y ago
Looking up the case, the evidence seems to be: - Defendant lied about getting into Harvard Business School, lied about being employed, was actually very in debt, and his wife had a $250,000 life insurance policy - Defendant immediately fled the state after his wife died, leaving behind lots of expensive property, and soon started dating someone new - Defendant had apparently kept insisting that his wife really liked Gatorade, which people who knew her found odd, and Gatorade is a good medium to hide the taste of antifreeze - Wife was not suicidal, and had medical training, so she would have known that antifreeze is a terrible way to kill yourself - Investigators found various searches for homemade poisons, including antifreeze, on the defendant's laptop Some jury members said the laptop evidence was what convinced them. It is conceivable that the sentence would be overturned if the laptop evidence is suppressed, which is what EFF wants.
- eplanit 10y ago
  > - Investigators found various searches for homemade poisons, including antifreeze, on the defendant's laptop > Some jury members said the laptop evidence was what convinced them. It's almost funny how often this is the Achilles's heel of murderers. In so many "Forensic Files" episodes the culprits' browser/search history is what nails them.
  - jcranmer 10y ago
    Apparently, the report that Casey Jones did 84 searches for chloroform was based on a misreading of the mork file format (see https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/07/mork-keeps-on-giving-when-the-database-worms-eat-into-your-murder-trial/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/07/mork-keeps-on-giving-when-t..., although you'll want to type that out yourself rather than click the link). The competence of people doing this sort of discovery is not unquestionable.
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      >although you'll want to type that out yourself rather than click the link Sorry if this sounds naive... why?
      - jcranmer 10y ago
        Because jwz doesn't allow click-throughs to his blog from hacker news.

burkaman 10y ago

Well, if you think a particular practice is illegal, you should think it's illegal all the time, even when it's used against people who are clearly guilty. This is somewhat comparable to the ACLU defending the KKK. Everybody has rights, and you legitimize your cause when you fight for everyone, not just when it's comfortable. And more practically, a case with the right details does not appear in a state supreme court very often. EFF wants to set a precedent, so they need to take whatever opportunity presents itself.

bsimpson 10y ago
Seems to me like there are two angles to it: - Yes, the law should apply equally to the guilty and innocent: the KKK has the right to free speech, and this asshole has 4th amendment rights requiring a warrant before his effects can be searched. According to the article, there was one. - If you want to make an argument about nuance, do it in a venue where nuance is appropriate. This guy got caught murdering his wife, using evidence obtained from a warrant. The EFF is arguing that the warrant should have been more specific. Perhaps, but this is the wrong case to try to establish that precedence on. It's human nature to want justice, and letting someone off on a technicality is an affront to justice. If everyone knew that this technicality existed, it's a reasonable defense to use. However, to argue for the existence of a technicality where one doesn't already exist flies in the face of our fundamental desire for the world to be a fair place. I suspect that makes it a much harder case to win, because at the end of the day, someone's going to be thinking "but it let THIS ASSHOLE off? No, that's not OK."
- burkaman 10y ago
  I understand that position, but I think the practicality argument is important here. These kinds of cases don't appear in Supreme Courts very often, and furthermore if EFF doesn't intervene and the conviction is upheld, that sets a precedent going the other way. Every chance they ignore makes their future chances much more difficult. Also, I don't think he'll be "let off" regardless of what happens. He's been in jail for 12 years, and if successful here he'll get a new trial, not be immediately released. I'm not a lawyer, but I think the case against him is still fairly strong without the laptop evidence, which was circumstantial like everything else.

gleenn 10y ago

It has the upside of setting a strong precedent: the guy might be totally guilty but if the EFF can prove the search was overly broad, when cases are less clear then it would be more obvious to protect the privacy of the defendant.