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Comment by rprasad | Hacker News Reader

Two weeks after the Secret Service raided his house in conjunction with the investigation led by Heymann into the theft of tens of thousands of credit card numbers, James was found dead.

Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial. They kill themselves after they have lost at trial. This other hacker (Jonathan James) didn't even wait until they pressed charges.

It's not a matter of the prosecutor being overzealous. It's a matter of hackers being far more susceptible to suicidal tendencies than others in the face of extreme social conflict.

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Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial. They kill themselves after they have lost at trial.

Citation needed.

It makes perfect sense to me that a depressed person who has realized what trial is going to cost, and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them, would commit suicide. An innocent person who BELIEVES that they WILL be believed probably reacts very differently. But there are a lot of people in this world who, while innocent, won't necessarily have that belief.

I would not be surprised if there was a high concentration of such among people who choose to use computers heavily.

> and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them

I agree with you.

In "Goodbye to Shy", Leil Lowndes cites research that shows that even someone who is just shy will tend to interpret other peoples opinions of them and of interactions with them far more negatively than less shy people.

It takes very, very little to turn what would be an incredibly stressful situation to most people - innocent or not - and turn it into something substantially worse depending just on relatively benign personality traits.

Much less mental illnesses like depression that can be extremely severe.

Are you a clinical psychologist?

Do you have citations for your perfect sense?

Can you quantify your lack of surprise?

Is rprasad a clinical psychologist?.

If he is pulling things out of his ass without citations, it seems reasonable that he receive responses that do the same.

More to the point, rprasad is making sweeping statements of fact, along the lines of, "Anyone who commits suicide before trial must be guilty." I'm making what are clearly statements of personal opinion, along the lines of, "Here is a scenario where I can imagine the stress of a legal case tipping a depressed person over the cliff into suicide."

Strong claims require strong evidence. I'm making far, far weaker claims. The burden of proof should squarely be on rprasad.

> Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.

Yap. Because they will clearly receive a speedy and fair trial. Without bullying and predatory plea bargaining involved. In the end when they are sure to be acquitted, if the accuser is the government, they will get all court and lawyer costs paid, and then some extra for time, inconvenience and the pain involved.

This particular person was earlier caught hacking into computers at the DOD and NASA (as a minor). He was indicted around June or July and entered a plea in September for which he received six months of house arrest and probation until 18 (about a year). It's not a reasonable presumption that this was someone who was innocent who knew he was going to get railroaded "by the system." He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse.

>"He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse."

That's a bold statement - I don't know his full history or all the facts of his case, but what you're implying is that someone's past actions and convictions are all that's needed to asses their present guilt.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was innocent and maybe he knew everyone would think like you? It doesn't take much to realize that this way of thinking quickly leads to a conviction regardless of the facts.

At trial evidence of his past conviction would have been suppressed for precisely the reason you state. However, the rules of evidence for internet posting are not quite so strict.

I would agree that it is somewhat unlikely that he was innocent, but it is far from impossible that he actually was.

There are people who will try to root your computer, and who prefer to do their bad stuff from someone else's computer so that the heat won't come back to them. If you hang around with the wrong crowd and don't know what you're doing well enough, the odds of this happening go up. Suppose that this happened to him the first time around, and the forensics were done poorly, so he took the fall for someone else's crime. Then it starts happening again, and he knows he won't be believed because he wasn't before.

I would rate this scenario as unlikely, but not impossible. However plausible enough that I don't accept the clearly in, "He was clearly someone..."

Hackers routinely use the 'joe job' trick to implicate others for their crimes. If you're ever on the receiving end of such a scheme you might change your opinion on 'reasonable presumptions'.

I am not familiar that much with that specific case. I was referring more to the grandparent's general assertion that "innocent people don't kill themselves" and my point was that they only don't kill themselves if they are sure to face fair and unbiased judicial system.

I have a dead relative that would probably disagree with you.

Don't assume so much.

What about being confronted with the possibility of spending $1.5 million or more on a legal defense?

Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.

Well, we have two counterexamples to this.

You do speak with a lot of authority on this topic.

I am wondering if you have ever been wrongly accused of anything serious?

Thats the most stupidest argument I have ever read. Please consult a psychologist.

> Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial.

You are completely wrong. All of them have the charges dropped, so they aren't ever convicted. And as we know it everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

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