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Accused Killer Asks For Online Media Users' IDs
SpaceGhost writes "According to the Houston Chronicle, the attorney for a Texas man charged in the death of a four-year-old 'has asked several local media outlets to provide the names of readers and listeners who commented about his client online,' stating that his client 'was struck by the conclusions people drew about his client and the specificity of some comments that made it appear they came from people with personal knowledge of the case.' Media outlets who have been subpoenaed include The Houston Chronicle, the Conroe Courier, KHOU (Houston area Channel 11, CBS affiliate) and KTRK (Houston area Channel 13, ABC affiliate)."
how many people would have ersonal knowledge of the case? probably no where near 300 so they're implying that a smaller number of people went out of their way to voice their opinion about the guy. It seems however, that they are on a fishing expedition with suspicions but no evidence at least indicated by TFA.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
It's just the standard fishing expedition. The defense doesn't HAVE a defense, so they are trying to confuse the issues. Notice that they don't name just a single paper, or a specific number of users or posts. It's a broad sweep with a huge net, meant to pull in a lot of material that will have maximum confusion value.
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Yeah, but 300 people having personal knowledge of the case? Did he kill her on stage? Sounds to me like someone clawing for anything to get out of doing his time.
To be fair, 300 is not a large number of people, at least not on the scale of Internet comments. Is it likely that all 300 have relevant, original information? No. Is it within the realm of possibility that 295 of the 300 got their information from the same 5 people, and that those 5 people have relevant information? Absolutely.
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While not admissible, it's certainly worth his lawyer getting their names to check them out. Even if its hearsay, they heard it from SOMEBODY, and maybe that person didn't tell the cops everything, or the witness is telling things to other people.
Guy is accused of heinous murder... anybody talking to their buddies, and the rest of the internet, and not to the police is not doing their civic duty to get this guy a fair trial. If somebody told different information in an internet post than they told the investigators, that's definitely worth knowing.
When in doubt, couch your language and, that does mean typing all your comments while sitting on a sofa using a laptop, that means simply express everything as a opinion not as a statement of factor. The all the slander and attorney lawyers in the world can not touch you unless they can prove that at the exact time you expressed your opinion it was not in fact your true opinion but that you lied about it and falsely expressed your opinion in order to slander someone.
Whilst this can definitely happen, think of all those astroturfers eg. M$ trolls for example, it is of course impossible to prove.
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I read the article before, and it certainly is of concern. However, it's a horrendously one-sided article, which covers only the incriminating facts that they can later refute, ignoring the rest of the trial as if it didn't exist, in order to make a point.
Secondly, just because someone shouldn't have been convicted on the evidence (reasonable doubt), isn't proof of innocence by a long shot.
The governor does NOT serve any role in the court system. The fact that he has the opportunity to pardon someone doesn't translate into an obligation for him to determine guilt or innocence.
And while I'm here, I'd just like to point out my endless frustration with this idiotic mindset that, if you don't execute someone, you can "make it right". It's a load of crap. People on death row are in prison for years, DECADES, before being executed... Releasing someone for a crime they didn't commit after 30 years of torture in prison isn't exactly a "take back" that's going to make it all better. You've still utterly destroyed a person's life, not just for the time they were in prison, but also for all the time after they're released. I'd like to keep the death penalty around, if only for motivating people to improve the rigor of the legal system. Clearly, they wouldn't be nearly as motivated if people were "just" facing a lifetime locked away...
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No, my guess he's expressing a not unexpected horror that the sick fuck murdered a 4 year old child.
No, that is once again begging the question. The man's been charged but not yet convicted - you know that 'innocent until proven guilty' thing? It looks like he's guilty, yes, but 'looks like' isn't good enough when you're talking about a long life in prison or a much shorter one on death row.
Due process must of course be followed, but fuckit, there's something to be said for stringing that fucker up and hearing him gurgle.
Due process is all that stands between YOU and being strung up to gurgle when some kid goes missing and you happened to drive past their house that morning. Witch hunts are bad and don't serve 'justice' in any way.
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