Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethanbond | Hacker News Reader

The guy happened to be a photographer, but his being subpoenaed and held in contempt had to do with him refusing to testify against his corrupt DEA brother. He “pled the Fifth” to avoid, in his own words, testifying against his brother, which is not what the 5th Amendment protects. His lawyer claimed he was pleading the 5th to prevent accidentally perjuring himself, but there’s no such thing as accidentally perjuring oneself. Prosecutors have to prove you willfully and knowingly told a falsehood.

This is just someone paying the cost they have to pay to protect their criminal brother.

Seems like due process working well AFAICT.

View on HN

> Prosecutors have to prove you willfully and knowingly told a falsehood.

No, they have to make someone else believe you did. How else would this burden of proof be lifted? some form of brain scan that can just say "yeah, he willfully did it!"? no, they put fourth some motive/set of circumstances, and if a bunch of people believe the spin, its "proved"

Good point! If you are under oath don’t give testimony that your average juror would take to be a willful and knowing lie.

Jurors by definition aren’t the brightest, since they don’t know how to get out of jury duty.

Some people are willing to serve without resistance because it needs doing. I am one of them.

Me to, twice. Which is where my opinion of jurors was formed.

I try to get seated because jurors have the power to return not_guilty for any reason.

Factor that into your deception/truth-telling calculation if and how you want

Wait, you’re saying incarceration someone for 18 months without charges or trial is somehow alright?

No. Not alright.

If you think it’s fine I encourage you to go through it. Oh you’re not interested in spending 18mo in jail? Then STFU.

So, what then? Allow people to be in contempt of court with complete impunity?

Surely there is some sense of proportionality?

Is refusing to speak worse than the average felony?

Yes I do think that we (society writ large, acting through the mechanism known as “a democratically elected government”) should be able to compel people to face our justice system.

It’s all part of due process.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com