How Hacker News could help save an innocent man from life in prison | Hacker News Reader

How Hacker News could help save an innocent man from life in prison

14 pointsClintEhrlich8 comments

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a Dateline NBC episode about a clean-cut Iraq-war veteran and father of four who inexplicably murdered an 18-year-old girl he had never met before. When I finished watching the show, I was confused: How did police prove he was the killer?

As far as I could tell, the only thing he was guilty of was hearing gunshots, calling for help, and then trying to assist detectives. If you have 40 minutes, google "The Girl With the Blue Mustang" and see for yourself.

I decided to start my own investigation. What I discovered is the single worst miscarriage of justice I have ever heard about in a first-world country. For the last ten years, Sergeant Ray Jennings has been serving a life sentence, even though there is gunshot-residue and DNA-testing that proves he is innocent, as well as eyewitness testimony that another, unidentified man fled the scene of the shooting while Jennings was radioing his own location to the responding officers so they could arrive as quickly as possible.

Today, I sent the District Attorney this comprehensive refutation of the State's case: http://docdro.id/Qr6auC7

I'm posting it on Hacker News because I want to crowdsource ideas for how to make the arguments even more persuasive. Which parts did you find convincing? Can you think of any arguments I should add?

Please do not post the link elsewhere, because right now a huge outcry on social media would be counterproductive. The better way to express your support is to actually send a message to Ray in his cell using Letterquick.com.

He barely ever hears from people who understand he is innocent, so it would really raise his spirits to know that a bunch of smart people are brainstorming how to free him.

His address is: Raymond Jennings Inmate ID AD0123, Block D1, Cell #222 PO Box 931 Imperial, CA. 92251

I have only read the introductory few pages so far and hope to read the rest tonight, but I just wanted to say good luck and I hope you can help correct this devastating mistake.

The title is too optimistic, IIUC, he is not saved yet, he is still in prison.

Well, it's an aspirational headline. I'm working on making it come true, and I appreciate whatever suggestions HN readers have for helping me reach that goal.

Would it be more accurate to say "How HN can help increase the odds of saving a guy from life in prison"? Yes, it certainly would be.

But I also think that it would decrease the odds of people paying enough attention to help me get Ray Jennings out of prison. I feel comfortable skirting the rules about headlines if that's what it takes to help reunite Ray with his kids. Because at this very moment, while you and I are free to go about our lives and pursue our interests, he is locked inside a cage like an animal.

I'm sorry if my comment comes across as standoffish. It wasn't the tone I was going for. Your point is valid, and it's one that occurred to me. I just feel like this is the one thread where there are much bigger things at stake.

>I just feel like this is the one thread where there are much bigger things at stake.

I have no objections to your cause but your current headline is, whether on purpose or not, clickbait. I clicked it because I thought it described an usual event that already happened. I would guess most did for the same reason.

You can't justify clickbait headlines with them having noble causes behind them. It's how you end up with Upworthy.

OP's position depends entirely on being regarded as trustworthy. And in the first 11 words, OP lied to us in a pre-meditated fashion.

The clickbait headline is inappropriate and makes me (and I presume many others) much less interested in spending any time on this issue after being duped.

"One weird trick to get someone out of a life sentence..."

"5 things wrong with this case; you won't believe #4!"

This one is no better. Flagged.

I hear you. What we're dealing with is essentially the classic deontology versus util debate. Do we judge morality in terms of abstract principles or causal effects? You and I both know that the result of my headline isn't going to be ecoming Upworthy, but you flagged it because you, for better or worse, care about the principle more than the immediate consequence. Basically, rule-based utilitarianism.

You're right, maybe it was kind of a clickbait headline. I'm sorry you felt tricked or let down. Could you suggest a replacement you think would be fair?

I think the thing that distinguishes what I'm doing is that I'm not just asking for you to sign a petition or something. My dad and I worked for ten weeks reviewing thousands of pages of the record in order to create the document I'm sharing here, in the hopes of getting quality feedback. It's a real project that is intimately connected to the skills I use in all other hacking.

I'm trying to use those hacking skills to free an innocent man from prison. I can send you the compendium of exhibits, so you don't have to take my word about any factual assertions in the letter. I put in more than 200 footnotes cites to the record.

If you read the letter, you'll see that Ray Jennings is being wrongfully imprisoned, and has been for ten years. Please don't let my poor judgement in choosing the phrasing of the headline to stop you from looking at the evidence.

Finally, this one IS objectively better because those are tricks in the sense they don't offer something of value. There is no "weird trick" to actually transform yourself, etc. Here, you DO receive something pretty damn rare: conclusive proof a man sitting in prison is innocent.

I'm sad that matters less than the headline.

I believe you have good intent. To that end, other headlines that might better balance "grabbing attention" and "not being a lie" are:

"An innocent man is serving a life sentence."

"Imprisoned for life for a murder he didn't commit. Help bouy his spirits while he appeals."

I wish you the best and if the facts are as you believe, I way, way wish the defendant in the case to be freed. There are few things worse than being imprisoned for life for a crime you didn't commit.

The problem with a pure utility argument to support what you did is that you're stating that your cause is worthy of attention and that's what makes it different from the others. I'm sure the others would make a parallel argument that their cause (even if it's just "making money by selling ad views so my kids can eat and have shelter") is also worthy, because the test merely requires the author of the headline to judge whether it's worthy of attention. You genuinely believe, but you're hardly an unbiased judge.

That very quickly escalates to a tragedy of the commons where no one can rise above the cacophony of clickbait screams. Instead, I go by the community guidelines, which include two relevant ones:

"Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important."

"please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

We changed the title from "How Hacker News saved an innocent man from life in prison".

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