4 ms·

Remember this story? A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people-

Remember this story? A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people-puts-three-more-in-jail https://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-tw...

emodendroket 8y ago
No, but I remember this one, where a court determined "give me a lawyer dog" meant "give me a lawyer-dog" rather than "give me a lawyer, dog" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5d536fa55673 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02...
- kolpa 8y ago
  That article is almost certainly wrong, or at least misleading. The question at hand was whether this statement was a direct request for a counsel, or just chatter. "This is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog ’cause this is not what’s up.” The court decided " (agreeing with the lower courts’ conclusion that the 1 2 statement “[m]aybe I should talk to a lawyer” is not an unambiguous request for a lawyer). In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a “lawyer dog” does not constitute an invocation of counsel". There's a little bit of cultural bias in the "dog" part, but the main thrust is that the defendant didn't make a clear statement of invocation. IMO the law as it stands is horrid -- legal representation should be the default unless explicitly waived, not the reverse, but under the current law the decision turned on whether that statements was a demand for a lawyer or merely a suggestion. http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I don't understand your objection. As you've quoted, from that decision, the judgment refers to an "ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog,'" which pretty plainly suggests that the judge has deemed "lawyer-dog" a lexical unit rather than interpreting "dog" as a sobriquet. At best you could say it was only part of his reasoning; either way, in my mind, it goes beyond cultural bias to be a patently absurd reading.
pluma 8y ago
That title is atrocious, though. The cellphone didn't kill anyone, this is basically an "honor killing".
- kolpa 8y ago
  Right, but the honor-killing was triggered by a miscommunication due to the phone's poor ability to transmit language.
  - pluma 8y ago
    If a simple typo was enough to trigger the honor-killing, it's disingenuous to look for anyone to blame but the murderer himself. If a German doctor texts someone "Ich verabreiche Schmerzmittel an meine Patienten nur in Massen" (I only apply painkillers to my patients en masse) because the phone doesn't support the sharp S (which would have changed the meaning from "a very large amount" to the opposite) and the recipient kills him out of concern that he's intentionally overdosing his patients, you wouldn't try to excuse the murderer by blaming the technology for that act of reckless and misdirected vigilantism, would you? Humans make mistakes. Software makes mistakes. If you decide to murder someone based on a single sentence in writing, that's all on you.

emodendroket 8y ago

No, but I remember this one, where a court determined "give me a lawyer dog" meant "give me a lawyer-dog" rather than "give me a lawyer, dog" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5d536fa55673 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02...

kolpa 8y ago
That article is almost certainly wrong, or at least misleading. The question at hand was whether this statement was a direct request for a counsel, or just chatter. "This is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog ’cause this is not what’s up.” The court decided " (agreeing with the lower courts’ conclusion that the 1 2 statement “[m]aybe I should talk to a lawyer” is not an unambiguous request for a lawyer). In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a “lawyer dog” does not constitute an invocation of counsel". There's a little bit of cultural bias in the "dog" part, but the main thrust is that the defendant didn't make a clear statement of invocation. IMO the law as it stands is horrid -- legal representation should be the default unless explicitly waived, not the reverse, but under the current law the decision turned on whether that statements was a demand for a lawyer or merely a suggestion. http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt http://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdfrt
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I don't understand your objection. As you've quoted, from that decision, the judgment refers to an "ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog,'" which pretty plainly suggests that the judge has deemed "lawyer-dog" a lexical unit rather than interpreting "dog" as a sobriquet. At best you could say it was only part of his reasoning; either way, in my mind, it goes beyond cultural bias to be a patently absurd reading.

pluma 8y ago

That title is atrocious, though. The cellphone didn't kill anyone, this is basically an "honor killing".

kolpa 8y ago
Right, but the honor-killing was triggered by a miscommunication due to the phone's poor ability to transmit language.
- pluma 8y ago
  If a simple typo was enough to trigger the honor-killing, it's disingenuous to look for anyone to blame but the murderer himself. If a German doctor texts someone "Ich verabreiche Schmerzmittel an meine Patienten nur in Massen" (I only apply painkillers to my patients en masse) because the phone doesn't support the sharp S (which would have changed the meaning from "a very large amount" to the opposite) and the recipient kills him out of concern that he's intentionally overdosing his patients, you wouldn't try to excuse the murderer by blaming the technology for that act of reckless and misdirected vigilantism, would you? Humans make mistakes. Software makes mistakes. If you decide to murder someone based on a single sentence in writing, that's all on you.