3 ms·

But it is pretty horrible that Hans was convicted of murder with only circumstantial evidence. For petty crimes, or even for more intense crimes like battery,

by palish 19y ago

But it is pretty horrible that Hans was convicted of murder with only circumstantial evidence. For petty crimes, or even for more intense crimes like battery, it might be worth it to make decisions based entirely on risky (though possibly accurate) circumstantial evidence. But when the most valuable portion of a person's life is on the line, the legal system's stance has to be that this person can only be convicted if there is hard evidence he committed the horrible crime, no matter how much we may want to believe that circumstantial evidence. Imagine what the result is if we're wrong about Hans. He is an extraordinarily smart person, a valuable member of society, and could have made significant accomplishments in the next 25 years with his intelligence and experience. If we're wrong then we're throwing away his future contributions to society, depriving people that he would have helped of his assistance, stealing him from his friends, and in general not allowing him to have a positive effect on anyone's life for the next 25 years. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, that isn't too horrible, but it would certainly be horrible for the people that he would have had a good effect on. Perhaps he would have inspired some child to go on and do great things. We can't know. Based on that, if a person is to be imprisoned for a huge portion of his life then there should be no doubt about his guilt. It's true that it's impossibly unlikely that Nina made herself vanish, but consider that someone else could have used her to frame him.

tptacek 19y ago
Why is it "horrible" that he was convicted with indirect evidence? People are convicted without eyewitnesses all the time. That's why we have juries.
- palish 19y ago
  People are routinely convicted of murder (or other substantial crimes) without hard evidence? Because I was referring to high crimes, not petty thefts or speeding tickets. It's 25 years of a smart man's life. Let's at least be 100% positive about his guilt.
  - tptacek 19y ago
    What is "hard" evidence? This is a term you've invented. "100% positive"? When are we ever 100% positive? "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers? People are routinely convicted of murder on indirect evidence. Evidence is evidence. It's up to the jury to decide how compelling the evidence is. I'm surprised they came back with murder 1, but would have been shocked if they had acquitted: there was a lot of circumstancial evidence.
    - palish 19y ago
      What is "hard" evidence? Evidence is hard if we are 100% positive about its accuracy. When are we ever 100% positive? When our decision is based on current technology that we've used to rigorously prove something. "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers? Those are your words, not mine. It would be silly to have different standards based on an artificial rating of a person. But we should have different standards that reflect the possibility that we're wrong. For example, by limiting prison terms to an absolute maximum of ten years unless we are 100% positive (as defined above) that the person is guilty.
      - tptacek 19y ago
        So, in the palish system of justice, if you can conceal a body, you face an absolute maximum of ten years in prison.
        SwellJoe 19y ago
        And in other news Tony Soprano today made a large contribution to the Palish for Governor campaign.
        palish 19y ago
        Currently, yes. That (indirect) question is difficult for me, and the answer might change in the future as I become more experienced. (I'm only 20, so what do I know anyway?) There are proportionally few people who are murderously inclined. It's worth risking them if it means that no innocents are convicted. Perfect murders are unlikely, and they become more unlikely as forensic technology improves. It's best for a prison sentence to be based on a proof, but if we can't be positive about a person's guilt then we should favor the possibility of innocence.
rms 19y ago
It's made even worse by the fucked up state of the US prison system -- his contribution really doesn't need to wasted. Would it be so horrible to give him a laptop and some internet access and let him hack?
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  Wow, what an enormous rathole you have discovered. Let me politely decline to explore this complex issue of justice, policing, and ethics -- one which probably should be decided case-by-case rather than by a one-size-fits-all rule -- and just point out that accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project.
  - rms 19y ago
    >accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project. Touche.
  - andreyf 19y ago
    accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project I wouldn't be so sure...
  - jcl 19y ago
    accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project. Curiously, the Oxford English Dictionary didn't have problems accepting contributions from their apparently-insane murderer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor
    - mechanical_fish 19y ago
      Yes, but it's harder to use an entry in the OED to send real-time messages to your opium supplier on the outside, coordinate your escape attempt, rob a bank, or open security holes that will allow Russian mobsters to 0wn the paper dictionary and use it to send out ads for authentic-whalebone penis extensions. (That would be a funny steampunk novel.) But, yes, this is the guy I had in mind when I said that you have to consider the question on a case-by-case basis.
nostrademons 19y ago
"He is an extraordinarily smart person, a valuable member of society, and could have made significant accomplishments in the next 25 years with his intelligence and experience." I really don't like this line of argument, because it implies that if he were not an extraordinarily smart person, a valuable member of society, without significant accomplishments, then he should be convicted. If it were a homeless divorced guy living out of his minivan, should he have been convicted? How about a blue-collar landscaper? An unemployed househusband? A society's standards of justice say far more about the society than they do about the people who go on trial before them. We have laws instead of kings because there's this wonderful innovation called "equal before the law". We owe a lot of Western civilization to that. The part I find disturbing is that he was essentially convicted because the jury didn't like him. I know this happens all the time - this is why lawyers have you wear a suit in court, and why they agonize over whether you should testify or not, and why they coach you on what to say on the stand, and why they have closing arguments. But it's usually not quite so overt. He made an ass out of himself at his own trial - I'd like to believe that it shouldn't matter when "justice is blind", but of course it does, and that's why he's going to jail.
- tptacek 19y ago
  There's a difference between being convicted "because the jury doesn't like you" and being convicted "because you manage to do supernatural damage to your credibility on the stand". I think that if Reiser had shut up and not testified, he'd have gotten manslaughter. It seems clear that his demeanor amped his conviction up to murder. But the jury didn't do that on a whim: Reiser managed to portrary himself as deceptive, evasive, and utterly unconcerned over the welfare of his family. That got factored in. How could it not?
- palish 19y ago
  Full agreement. A+++, would upvote again. I was trying to enumerate the good qualities of Hans. If it were someone else, I would have listed their positive qualities. I didn't mean to imply that they should affect the verdict, but meant to communicate "if we're wrong about Hans, the following value is lost: an extremely smart person, ..."

by palish 19y ago

tptacek 19y ago

Why is it "horrible" that he was convicted with indirect evidence? People are convicted without eyewitnesses all the time. That's why we have juries.

palish 19y ago
People are routinely convicted of murder (or other substantial crimes) without hard evidence? Because I was referring to high crimes, not petty thefts or speeding tickets. It's 25 years of a smart man's life. Let's at least be 100% positive about his guilt.
- tptacek 19y ago
  What is "hard" evidence? This is a term you've invented. "100% positive"? When are we ever 100% positive? "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers? People are routinely convicted of murder on indirect evidence. Evidence is evidence. It's up to the jury to decide how compelling the evidence is. I'm surprised they came back with murder 1, but would have been shocked if they had acquitted: there was a lot of circumstancial evidence.
  - palish 19y ago
    What is "hard" evidence? Evidence is hard if we are 100% positive about its accuracy. When are we ever 100% positive? When our decision is based on current technology that we've used to rigorously prove something. "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers? Those are your words, not mine. It would be silly to have different standards based on an artificial rating of a person. But we should have different standards that reflect the possibility that we're wrong. For example, by limiting prison terms to an absolute maximum of ten years unless we are 100% positive (as defined above) that the person is guilty.
    - tptacek 19y ago
      So, in the palish system of justice, if you can conceal a body, you face an absolute maximum of ten years in prison.
      - SwellJoe 19y ago
        And in other news Tony Soprano today made a large contribution to the Palish for Governor campaign.
      - palish 19y ago
        Currently, yes. That (indirect) question is difficult for me, and the answer might change in the future as I become more experienced. (I'm only 20, so what do I know anyway?) There are proportionally few people who are murderously inclined. It's worth risking them if it means that no innocents are convicted. Perfect murders are unlikely, and they become more unlikely as forensic technology improves. It's best for a prison sentence to be based on a proof, but if we can't be positive about a person's guilt then we should favor the possibility of innocence.

rms 19y ago

It's made even worse by the fucked up state of the US prison system -- his contribution really doesn't need to wasted. Would it be so horrible to give him a laptop and some internet access and let him hack?

mechanical_fish 19y ago
Wow, what an enormous rathole you have discovered. Let me politely decline to explore this complex issue of justice, policing, and ethics -- one which probably should be decided case-by-case rather than by a one-size-fits-all rule -- and just point out that accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project.
- rms 19y ago
  >accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project. Touche.
- andreyf 19y ago
  accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project I wouldn't be so sure...
- jcl 19y ago
  accepting patches from an apparently-insane convicted murderer is really, really bad P.R. for your open source project. Curiously, the Oxford English Dictionary didn't have problems accepting contributions from their apparently-insane murderer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor
  - mechanical_fish 19y ago
    Yes, but it's harder to use an entry in the OED to send real-time messages to your opium supplier on the outside, coordinate your escape attempt, rob a bank, or open security holes that will allow Russian mobsters to 0wn the paper dictionary and use it to send out ads for authentic-whalebone penis extensions. (That would be a funny steampunk novel.) But, yes, this is the guy I had in mind when I said that you have to consider the question on a case-by-case basis.

nostrademons 19y ago

"He is an extraordinarily smart person, a valuable member of society, and could have made significant accomplishments in the next 25 years with his intelligence and experience." I really don't like this line of argument, because it implies that if he were not an extraordinarily smart person, a valuable member of society, without significant accomplishments, then he should be convicted. If it were a homeless divorced guy living out of his minivan, should he have been convicted? How about a blue-collar landscaper? An unemployed househusband? A society's standards of justice say far more about the society than they do about the people who go on trial before them. We have laws instead of kings because there's this wonderful innovation called "equal before the law". We owe a lot of Western civilization to that. The part I find disturbing is that he was essentially convicted because the jury didn't like him. I know this happens all the time - this is why lawyers have you wear a suit in court, and why they agonize over whether you should testify or not, and why they coach you on what to say on the stand, and why they have closing arguments. But it's usually not quite so overt. He made an ass out of himself at his own trial - I'd like to believe that it shouldn't matter when "justice is blind", but of course it does, and that's why he's going to jail.

tptacek 19y ago
There's a difference between being convicted "because the jury doesn't like you" and being convicted "because you manage to do supernatural damage to your credibility on the stand". I think that if Reiser had shut up and not testified, he'd have gotten manslaughter. It seems clear that his demeanor amped his conviction up to murder. But the jury didn't do that on a whim: Reiser managed to portrary himself as deceptive, evasive, and utterly unconcerned over the welfare of his family. That got factored in. How could it not?
palish 19y ago
Full agreement. A+++, would upvote again. I was trying to enumerate the good qualities of Hans. If it were someone else, I would have listed their positive qualities. I didn't mean to imply that they should affect the verdict, but meant to communicate "if we're wrong about Hans, the following value is lost: an extremely smart person, ..."