> Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.
Yap. Because they will clearly receive a speedy and fair trial. Without bullying and predatory plea bargaining involved. In the end when they are sure to be acquitted, if the accuser is the government, they will get all court and lawyer costs paid, and then some extra for time, inconvenience and the pain involved.
This particular person was earlier caught hacking into computers at the DOD and NASA (as a minor). He was indicted around June or July and entered a plea in September for which he received six months of house arrest and probation until 18 (about a year). It's not a reasonable presumption that this was someone who was innocent who knew he was going to get railroaded "by the system." He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse.
>"He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse."
That's a bold statement - I don't know his full history or all the facts of his case, but what you're implying is that someone's past actions and convictions are all that's needed to asses their present guilt.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was innocent and maybe he knew everyone would think like you? It doesn't take much to realize that this way of thinking quickly leads to a conviction regardless of the facts.
At trial evidence of his past conviction would have been suppressed for precisely the reason you state. However, the rules of evidence for internet posting are not quite so strict.
I would agree that it is somewhat unlikely that he was innocent, but it is far from impossible that he actually was.
There are people who will try to root your computer, and who prefer to do their bad stuff from someone else's computer so that the heat won't come back to them. If you hang around with the wrong crowd and don't know what you're doing well enough, the odds of this happening go up. Suppose that this happened to him the first time around, and the forensics were done poorly, so he took the fall for someone else's crime. Then it starts happening again, and he knows he won't be believed because he wasn't before.
I would rate this scenario as unlikely, but not impossible. However plausible enough that I don't accept the clearly in, "He was clearly someone..."
Hackers routinely use the 'joe job' trick to implicate others for their crimes. If you're ever on the receiving end of such a scheme you might change your opinion on 'reasonable presumptions'.
I am not familiar that much with that specific case. I was referring more to the grandparent's general assertion that "innocent people don't kill themselves" and my point was that they only don't kill themselves if they are sure to face fair and unbiased judicial system.
Yap. Because they will clearly receive a speedy and fair trial. Without bullying and predatory plea bargaining involved. In the end when they are sure to be acquitted, if the accuser is the government, they will get all court and lawyer costs paid, and then some extra for time, inconvenience and the pain involved.