Hacker News Reader

Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

Trials are public. This is a feature. This means everything can be reported unless the court puts a ban on it. Note, too that the guy pleaded guilty in this case and I think it is right to publicise the court's reasons for the penalty, or lack thereof.

In the UK they release mugshots, full names, and approximate address in the media, after a guilt verdict. Names and approximate addresses are published before since trials are public.

Finland, Germany, France, etc. have gone to another extreme. In France they now even withhold the names of people arrested in the act of murder or terrorism because "people are presumed innocent" and "their privacy must be protected"... which is pushing it beyond sensible and common sense, and is fairly recent practice that seems to have spread from Germany.

View on HN

Hard disagree. It's well known that people who are falsely accused of such crimes end up having to live with the damage to their reputation even after a court finds them innocent, because that's not the news story people remember. In such societies, one's life is effectively ruined the moment one is accused.

Innocent until proven guilty, and the same goes for the court of public opinion.

There is a big difference between being accused and going to trial. I agree that identities should not be published based only on "accusations".

There is a big difference between being caught in the act and charged following an investigation.

Currently Europe is moving/has moved to an extreme position beyond common sense as it has done on several other issues based on "good intentions".

In some cases there is also a pressure to charge and go to trial just based on accusations (e.g. rape cases), which is another issue.

You are still innocent at trial.

There's no good from this only witch hunts. Something more common more recently in the anglosphere too.

You are still innocent at trial.

There's no good from this only figurative village mobs and witch hunts.

From my experience something culturally more common in the anglosphere too.

This is probably also an instance of a significant cultural difference. Continental Europe generally believes in rehabilitation, whereas the Anglosphere - and the US in particular - strike me more as having a vengeful justice system.

Public shaming of people at trial is incompatible with the belief in rehabilitation.

Shame of being convicted of a crime and rehabilitation are separate issues and this is not a cultural difference between continental Europe (which isn't even an homogeneous entity) and the "Anglosphere", either per se.

A trial is held before any conviction.

In Finland sentence can be reduced if the case has been publicized widely, i.e. the "shame" is seen as a punishment itself.

Being labeled as "a criminal" for sure hinders rehabilitation. It reduces opportunities and probably affects identity.

Based on how crime and offenders are publicly discussed in the US, it seems there's very little interest in rehabilitation, except if the person is of high status. Per my common sense the US culture is often just plain cruel with people revelling in others' suffering if they are labeled as "outsiders".

> In Finland sentence can be reduced if the case has been publicized widely, i.e. the "shame" is seen as a punishment itself.

This is to some extent true in the UK as well. Pubic figures are likely to lose their income if convicted of a crime, whereas someone in a less visible or responsible profession is more likely to be able to continue working immediately after serving their sentence (or during, if the sentence is non-custodial). This is therefore considered a mitigating factor during sentencing.

One result of this is that the law can sometimes appear to be more lenient on celebrities or other notable individuals, but it is really just making the system equitable so that the sentence has the same effect regardless of the criminal's personal situation.

Don't the celebrities have more money and resources? To make the sentence have the same effect they would be given harsher sentences.

What is the "common sense" here? My common sense can't see really any benefits from publicizing the information.

Don't you think that if it's in the name of the people that the people should have the right to know? Aren't trials public anyway?

If you are interested, you can go to the court to watch the proceedings or get the documents.

OK. How am I then not allowed to post here what happened in the court?

You are allowed to post what happened in the court. You are also allowed to share names and even video to at least a limited audience.

OK, so like on my X account where I publish names of people on trial.

That depends on the case and for what purpose the names are published. But I'd say usually there will be no legal ramifications.

What is the purpose for publishing the named?

IANAL, but in general, doxxing people is just a really mean thing to do.

Convicted criminal? Sure, write a story. In the most hopeful case, the sentence they serve will help reintegrate them with society - even then, it's good to know who you're dealing with.

Proven innocent? Lawful or not, you're now carrying the weight of possibly ruining someone's life even further. Sleep on that.

In the UK, a story is legally considered libellous if it's written in a way that could harm its subject, even if the facts are true. That means it would be a tort against the convicted criminal to name them if it wouldn't be in the public interest to do so.

Libel strictly implies false statement and it is a full defence to show that the statement is true:

"It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true." [1]

That has to be the case otherwise it would be unlawful to say or publish anything negative about someone!

Public interest defence applies when the statement published was false.

Note that convicted criminals are always publicly named unless the court forbids it. In that latter case naming the person would still not be libel but contempt of court (which potentially means jail).

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26

> Convicted criminal? Sure, write a story. In the most hopeful case, the sentence they serve will help reintegrate them with society - even then, it's good to know who you're dealing with.

Even this is somewhat problematic. There seems to be a widespread idea that "criminality" is somehow an integral feature of some (un)people for whom almost anything goes, their lives being ruined is of no concern (not saying you imply these), and it's crucial to know who have this feature.

Something like this was actually a phrenologically motivated "scientific" view in the 19th century most famously by Lombroso's phrenological and eugenical "theory", but other "biological theories of criminality" are still around. It's not that such views are necessarily widely held, but it was the backdrop of the development of much of criminal policy.

The distorted view of crime and the tragedies it causes for both "innocent" and "criminal" is really sad.

Note: I'm not really arguing against you rollcat here or attributing this thinking to you. Just something tangentially related.

Yep that was a silly assumption on my part; I've just remembered a story from like 10 years ago. One of my skate buddies, very chill and motivated guy. He's had a terrible accident. He was in his home, mixed alcohol with his new medicine (which he had no idea he mustn't), and suddenly woke up strapped to a hospital bed, guards in the room. Turns out he drove a car and killed a person. He doesn't remember any of that happening, but he's had alcohol in his blood, the verdict was "obviously guilty". He served 2 years in prison, now can't find a job. Sometimes shit happens.

Trials are public in Finland, Germany, France etc. In some very severe crimes the name of the suspect may be published. For publicly discussed crimes the names can be usually found in some crime related discussion forums.

People are presumed innocent and their privacy must be protected. The mugshot porn is not good for anybody or the society in general.

This seems to introduce a lot of ambiguity to the concept of being public, in the sense that physical presence is being distinguished from a mediated, virtual presence, and the latter is considered somewhat tainted.

The same peculiar notion was present in the moral panic around Google Street View in Europe, where the exact view anyone can have from a public street was considered dangerous once digitized and copied.

There is a difference of information being public vs publicized. There's a huge difference in consequences for individuals of how widely information is distributed and how easily available it is.

This of course predates the internet. Publicizing generally available information about individuals or compiling them into databases for no acceptable reason has been illegal for ages at least in most of Europe.

The easier distribution by internet does cause some new questions in this and I'm not sure if restricting to "meatspace access" is optimal, but it is mostly what we have now.

Even if you are arrested in the act of killing someone you may have some defence that means you are not committing murder (e.g. self-defence, diminished responsibility, I think France still has ‘crime in the heat of passion’ as a defence)

The replies are getting absurd but unfortunately very illustrative of the state of Europe in 2025.

The "good intentions" have indeed led to a situation in which criminals are protected beyond the level of protection and rights afforded to victims and law-abiding citizens.

People can get in trouble by publishing CCTV footage to identify criminals, to give one basic example. But that's to be expected if some people think that even convicted criminals'privacy should be protected...

> The "good intentions" have indeed led to a situation in which criminals are protected beyond the level of protection and rights afforded to victims and law-abiding citizens.

Is this true?

> The "good intentions" have indeed led to a situation in which criminals are protected beyond the level of protection and rights afforded to victims and law-abiding citizens.

Have you compared the crime rate between e.g. Europe and USA?

People who have been sentenced of a crime are people too and (should) have rights. Its better for everybody.

That's whataboutism, red herring, and strawman in a single comment, I'm afraid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com