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Comment by smackfu | Hacker News Reader

A bit of a tautology there: If the expert witness that was on Aaron's side wasn't planning to testify he was not guilty... he wouldn't be the expert witness on Aaron's side.

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I agree, it isn't a definitive source proving that Aaron was innocent. My main point was that btilly said it was "clearly illegal". And I've seen that point reiterated multiple times. Nearly every article I've seen has assumed his quilt. So I just wanted to point out that there is another side.

I don't think it was supposed to be an argument from authority.

But that doesn't mean the expert witness is wrong.

No, it just means he's not the impartial expert on the facts that some seem to be imagining him to be. I'm sure the prosecution had an expert witness who could have written a post saying "Aaron would have been found guilty."

For what it's worth, the expert we're talking about stated in his post that he usually testified against hackers. He explained what he thought was different in Aaron's case in his post.

True. But if we assume everyone put on the stand in a trial is a paid shill, lieing for one side or the other, we also have to assume that that the court system is a sham and there's no point in a trial.

I'd rather assume that we can find smart, honest experts who happen to disagree, and that we can trust what they are saying to be their view of reality.

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