Judge Berates Prosecutors In Xbox Modding Trial

mrbongo writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Opening statements in the first-of-its-kind Xbox 360 criminal hacking trial were delayed here Wednesday after a federal judge unleashed a 30-minute tirade at prosecutors in open court, saying he had 'serious concerns about the government's case.' ... Gutierrez slammed the prosecution over everything from alleged unlawful behavior by government witnesses, to proposed jury instructions harmful to the defense. When the verbal assault finally subsided, federal prosecutors asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss or move forward with the case that was slated to become the first jury trial of its type. A jury was seated Tuesday."

Comments

Re: No Rage Allowed

[anomaly256]

Unless of course they are committing unlawful behaviour and tampering with jurors. Oh wait.. RTFA.

Lets get the facts straight :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa ... lets get the facts straight here :-)

The judge initially dismissed fair use arguments by the defense, but now seems to be reevaluating that decision. Probably because he too the time needed to understand all the technical and legal details of the case. The DMCA is not a 1-pager you read overnight and its implication on other lega areas is huge.

And the kid absolutley did not just hack his X-box. He had a small business selling modded X-boxes to other people, and was recorded by an agent doing exactly that.

I absolutely think that modding should be allowed for several reasons - so I am not siding with the prosecution here. I am just trying to make the facts clear to everyone.

:-)

- Jesper

Re:And tomorrow...

[cpt kangarooski]

No.

First, thanks to the ease of putting and accessing cases on the computer, some federal courts now accept the citing of 'unpublished' opinions.

Second, all previously-decided cases establish precedents, but only some are binding precedents, which a court must follow, while most are merely persuasive, which a court may or may not follow as it sees fit. It's perfectly acceptable to cite the opinions of trial courts, if that's the best thing you've got.