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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> Hmmm, seems like a lot of people involved in this case should be fired,

I would like to see people who cause others’ freedom and time to be stolen from them because of laziness or malice to be charged with felonies.

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Accuser1 - Sir this man stole from us

Police1 - Yeah we saw the ID and stuff and some video

Innocent Man - where's the video, coz i was in different state

Accuser1 - we deleted it - poker face

Police - poker face

Innocent1 - poker face

Court - ok bye c u later

In a sane world, that would be destruction of evidence. You shouldn’t be able to tell the court evidence exists and then destroy it before you let anyone else examine it.

Yeah, if strict liability applied in such cases prosecutors and other parties would be a great deal more careful about what they dared assert.

Especially if it is found later during discovery.

As I understand, the evidence wasn't owned by prosecution, but by Apple. It's like saying "the truth is out there", which is technically true, but shouldn't count as evidence until collected.

Then why was it used for an arrest warrant? Should evidence not be examined before the warrant is issue? Or can you just claim to have video evidence of a murder to get someone you don't like arrested?

> Should evidence not be examined before the warrant is issue?

Examined and secured. Having evidence in official custody should be a prerequisite for using it in an official capacity - or stuff like this happens.

Generally it should be secured before an arrest warrant is issued, examined before a trial

You don’t have a right to fight an arrest warrant. But you do have a right to review the evidence that will be used against you during your trial.

I think the general point still stands. The evidence was no secured either.

Prosecution should be held in contempt of court if they fail to keep their own evidence securely, including the platforms and locations of storage.

I think prosecutors should go to jail if they keep their evidence in a building covered in kerosene and then "whoops" the evidence has gone up in flames.

We're at the "educate yourself, shitlord!" phase of criminal prosecution.

This is probably exactly how things would work 20 years after the Idiocracy epoch.

Yes, we can start with Congress.

Thing is... its just a day job for these people and they probably get paid less than us devs. They have families, complicated lives just like we do. Stuff gets in the way of doing a stellar job sometimes. I don't think lazy devs that create buggy software should be charged with a felony, they just shouldn't get promoted or should change careers.

“gets in the way of doing a stellar job” is so far beyond this.

Not being paid enough is not an excuse for lying and making things up just so you can arrest someone who is innocent.

Having been falsely subjected to criminal charges myself I don't really agree. Having your pizza arrive late and cold is 'less than stellar'. Being jailed is a whole different experience, and though it was not for very long and the charged were ultimately dismissed I count myself very lucky for having had the support and resources I did. Many others are less fortunate and suffer far more.

You are probably lucky enough to be a US citizen. If you are an immigrant an arrest is a problem everytime you need reapply for a visa/residence permit. The question in the paperwork is always "have you been arrested", not "have you been convicted of a crime". In this case you'd like to see lengthy prison sentences for all involved, the whole chain of command.

What if "lazy devs that create buggy software" literally destroy peoples lives?

Blameless postmortem are fine only if steps are taken to uncover and fix the problem at the root cause. There's no excuse for systematically jailing innocent or pushing buggy software.

In this case, what steps were taken? Video was deleted!

"I don't think lazy devs that create buggy software should be charged with a felony"

Does that apply to developers of an airplane's autopilot, insulin pumps, and other stuff that gets people killed?

If your organization produces safety critical components, then one individual's mistake should not be able to impact delivered products.

Same here: a single mistake should not send the wrong person to jail.

On the other hand, if someone is sabotaging the system for personal gain, they should certainly be imprisoned.

Agreed.

I've been saying for awhile now that developers who work in life critical applications should be held to the same licensing and educational standard as civil engineers. There should be legal difference between a "coder" who can be unlicensed and not formally trained working on non critical software and a "software engineer" who is educated, licensed and bonded to work on stuff such as medical, automotive, aerospace and control systems. There should also be some kind of equivalent to the various engineering organizations that sets standards and norms.

If you lie to cover up your bugs after they hurt someone, you should definitely be in jail.

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