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Juror Explains Guilty Vote In Terry Childs Case
alphadogg writes "Terry Childs, the San Francisco network administrator who refused to hand over passwords to his boss, was found guilty of one felony count of denying computer services, a jury found Tuesday. Now, one of those jurors (Jason Chilton, juror #4) is speaking out in an interview with IDG News Service's Bob McMillan: 'The questions were, first, did the defendant know he caused a disruption or a denial of computer service. It was rather easy for us to answer, "Yes there was a denial of service." And that service was the ability to administer the routers and switches of the FiberWAN. That was the first aspect of it. The second aspect was the denial to an authorized user. And for us that's what we really had to spend the most time on, defining who an authorized user was. Because that wasn't one of the definitions given to us.'"
Not really. I've served on a couple (in San Francisco even) and they pretty much just dismiss you and send you on your way right after the verdict. You can come back for sentencing if you want, but after weeks/months in the courtroom thats pretty much the last thing you want to do.
I guess you could put a note in there or something, but most of the time unless you read up on the statutes in question you don't know how much jail time he's facing or whatnot. And personally, I think to be completely objective its probably better not to know. Your job is to apply the law and answer the question if beyond reasonable doubt did the defendant break the law. That's it. You have to do it objectively and I think knowing that you're personally responsible for sending some guy to jail for 20 years might make some people "iffy" on returning a guilty verdict. Its pretty black and white - there's no "guilty, but only by a little bit". Obviously there are some cases (death penalty, civil suits) where the jury does make the decision on the outcome after the "who won" phase, but for something like this its up to the judge.
I would certainly hope that they give him time served considering he's been in jail a couple of years already. Having read a bunch on this and followed the story my opinion is that he's guilty, but honestly he should have just been fired and fined. Its not like he was trying to defraud the city or personally gain from this or from what I can tell had any malicious intent beyond "these guys are idiots". I wouldn't hire him, but in the grand scheme of things it sounds like he's just a jerk who could still be a productive member of society.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html
You're a criminal too. You just haven't been charged yet.
As someone who saw through Terry Childs early on, I found myself in the minority here. I took one of my first big karma beatings just pointing out a few ways how this narrative of him being a idealistic professional locked up by his evil, stupid bosses was pretty obviously not possible, even just looking at the bare facts.
There were lots of people on both sides all along. Here is one guy, modded up to +5. If you find yourself getting modded down, it's probably because you come across as an angry old man, and I say that in the kindest possible way. For example, in this comment you say:
You know, babyish insults kind of give up that you are a baby, David. And what's moronic? Contradicting yourself in a written medium like this, when it's so obvious. People generally read these in chronological order, you know.
Not cool, it looks a lot like flamebait. Also, in your present post you come across as sounding like, "haha I was right, you were wrong!!!! Suck it losers!!!!" A lot of your posts sound like that, actually. You should work on that.
Qxe4
@khasim - I am only a dabbler in the computer field but have well over 30 years in the legal arena. In criminal cases, often the prosecutor will present several charges regarding a single offense. For example - in what most would consider a straight forward burglary case, they may charge: burglary [for that is what crime occurred]; trespass [a lesser included crime]; vandalism/criminal mischief [lesser included for the damage to the window to get into the house]; and theft [lesser included crime.] All charges are 'tried' at the same time. So a jury that might not find for the burglary, may find for some/all the lesser included charges. Prosecutors also do it in the hopes of having some bargaining power when it comes to reaching a plea deal [i.e. - drop whatever charge[s] with a plea of guilty to 'X' charge] - which saves time and money for the courts. So the fact that he was not found guilty of ALL the charges is nearly irrelevant.
That's call Jury Nullification. It's often legal, but defense lawyers are typically not allowed to mention it as an option.
There is. But if you work really, really hard you can prevent that. Password recovery doesn't really recover a password, it just circumvents the login process on boot. So he deleted the configuration from NVRAM (permanently stored) and left only the running-config (RAM, deleted on reboot) in place. Recovering the router would have left the router unconfigured. He had backups of the configs, but they were on an encrypted DVD that could only be read on his laptop as it required a passphrase to unlock, and the presence of a specific file, and he refused to make that available. The log servers he placed into locked containers with holes drilled for cable runs.
And he did some of those things after being asked to hand over the network, so he specifically took action to prevent others from accessing the network.
You can read up on those in the big Childs thread from the other day, where the same juror being interviewed posted in that thread, and divulged those details.
After reading the article, I stand by points I made in earlier discussions.
What we have here is a travesty and not justice. We have a juror who was given faulty jury instructions, who had relevant information withheld from them. And in the end, the decision made by the jurors amounted to what it looks like from the start - a collection of people who did not know anything about what they were looking at, scared by the prosecutors saying this is "w00h scary internets stuff", and making a faulty decision and a verdict that's a mockery of the law.
The legal system is broken.
umm...yeah...you sure you read the same article we did? Cus in the one the rest of us read, the juror is a Senior Network Engineer with a CCIE and a solid grasp of the technology.
Interesting that the two examples given in that article were cases where the defendant was eventually found NOT GUILTY.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
If Terry Childs really thought the only person authorized to receive the information was the mayor
Did you even read the interview? During normal work (before all the confusion), he was asked to create some user accounts. He did it and send an email with the created usernames/passwords to his boss and a copy to his boss's boss.
So, no, he didn't really think the only person authorized to receive access information was the mayor. That's just the excuse he used later for not wanting yo give up control of the system.
I negotiated a plea bargain for disorderly conduct in order to close the case on a pending charge of felony assault. Not because I feared having to defend against what I was arrested for, but because the prosecution appeared to not formally charge me for lack of a strong enough case. (At my arraignment, I formally identified myself, expecting the prosecution to present their charges, and the attorney left!) The case could have been left open for up to five years, and I'm in circumstances where an open case was far worse than a disorderly conduct conviction.
The problem here is that, after an arrest and finding of probable cause, the prosecution can take an inordinate amount of time to actually charge you. Sure, you can post bail, and be free, but the accusation can hang over your head for years before trial, if charges are ever pressed. Because they can be pressed on short notice, your circumstances are very much in limbo.
Far better would be if the accused could force the issue of trial without having to sit in jail: if incarcerated, one has a right to a speedy trial -- within 60 days in WA. But, if one posts bail, trial has to take place within 90 days of formal charges being laid. and those can be "sat on" for years (as defined by the state's statute of limitations, if any). Further, the court can order release one one not formally charged, and the same "sitting on" can occur.
Of course, the prosecution gets "one shot" to press formal charges, because of the prohibition against double jeopardy, so if they think their case is weak, they can sit on it. I say that is wrong.
From a finding of probable cause to a trial on the evidence should be a swift process. This would prevent arrests on the flimsiest evidence. After all, there is nothing stopping law enforcement to get necessary warrants to gather the evidence they need over a period of time.
In Liberty, Rene