Diebold Whistle-Blower Charged With Felony Access

Vicissidude writes "An employee of law firm Jones Day found legal memos showing that their client, Diebold Election Systems, had used uncertified voting systems in Alameda County elections beginning in 2002 - violating California election law. The whistle-blower turned over the memos to the Oakland Tribune, which published the legal memos on its website in April 2004. The company's AccuVote-TSx model was subsequently banned in May 2004. Now, the whistle-blower, Stephen Heller, has been charged in L.A. Superior Court with felony access to computer data, commercial burglary, and receiving stolen property. If convicted on all three counts, Heller could face up to three years and eight months in state prison. Blair Berk, Heller's attorney state, "Certainly, someone who saw those documents could have reasonably believed that thousands of voters were going to be potentially disenfranchised in upcoming elections." Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office rebuts, "He's accused of breaking the law... If we feel that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt in our minds that a crime has been committed, it's our job as a criminal prosecutor to file a case.""

Comments

Re:Jury Nullification

[tassii]

The job of the jury is to ensure that _justice_ is done, not that the law is followed.

Funny. the times I've sat on a jury we were specifically instructed to follow the law, not whatever our concept of 'justice' might be. The only time a jury gets to question the law is if that's the constitutionality of the law is the case. A juror can't ignore a law they think is injust. That would cause a mistrial.