I worked with a guy that had falsified some records to hide some misdeeds in his younger years. He made it 19 years before something unrelated forced us to do thorough background checks on our employees. He was escorted off the premises by police and his benefits voided by HR.
All I’m saying is… at some point you got away with it. We did him dirty.
Because Woods continued to insist, throughout the judicial process, that he was William Woods and not Matthew Kierans, a judge ruled in February 2020 that he was not mentally competent to stand trial and he was sent to a mental hospital in California, where he received psychotropic medication and other mental health treatment.
That's the stuff of nightmares. I hope the real Woods sues the system that put him through this.
Sadly the system never gets punished. I think these judges and prosecutors would do much better if there was ever present risk of either life in prison or even death penalty.
Nobody would take that job. If they did they would be hyper-cautious and never prosecute or sentence anyone. Better to just abolish the judicial system. Maybe you disagree, but I think that would be worse than the status quo.
There's always room to improve the system, but the way to do that is to make it resilient to individual failures, not by placing more pressure on the individual not to make mistakes.
I agree and disagree. We should improve the system to make it resilient to individual failures, and we should place more pressure on individuals in positions of power to not make mistakes.
I think a judge making a mistake this egregious should not be allowed to continue being a judge.
We should improve the system to make it resilient to individual failures
This isn't a solution. It is a wish. Obviously, we all would like it to be the case that innocent people are never punished. But first, is the rate of false convictions of the innocent actually egregiously high? This article gives an example of one case, but it does not follow that we are facing high rates of false convictions, especially for serious crimes that carry serious penalties. Second, is there a way to reduce false convictions, especially in a way that doesn't comprise the system in some serious way?
I think a judge making a mistake this egregious should not be allowed to continue being a judge.
Perhaps, perhaps not. You risk incentivizing behavior among judges that subverts the justice system.
I know i have seen more stories lately about innocent people being freed after newly analyzed DNA evidence. I think a good question is, how would we know if someone were wrongly convicted? What tells are there that the person the judge and lawyers said was guilty, that's now in prison, what could tell us they are innocent. Presumably there are tons of guilty people proclaim innocence every day to try to get out of their consequences. What separates them? There could be catastrophically high rates of innocent convictions and I'm not confident we would be aware of that
I think the best data we have of this in the US is the exoneration rate of death penalty convictions, which is startlingly high. A study from 2014 found it to be around 4% (https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111).
4% may sound low to some, but when people's live are on the line that's terribly high. If a plane had a 4% failure rate it would be considered a colossal failure.
Wood's lawyer told the court that Woods did not have the mental capacity to stand trial. What do you think would have been the correct response from the judge?
People always apply for jobs. Even airplane pilot, where the pay isn’t as high as software developers, and where giant door-losing corporations put millions into making every accident pass as a pilot error, incurring a dozen years in jail. Heck, people even apply for the army, where, out of no fault of your own, you can die. They do this for the proper function of the society.
And therefore, for proper function of society:
- Judges should be exposed to penal jail sentences if an innocent goes to jail,
- Judges should also be exposed to penal jail sentences in case they release a criminal sooner than the maximum sentence and they commit a new crime.
When a criminal is released 18 times by judges, and they slaughter a dozen people on the 19th time, you know you’re in France. And that’s somewhere you don’t want to be.
Mmmmmmmmm idk. I’m with you on some liability for the conviction of innocent people, but that liability should also extend to juries.
As far as being penalised for not predicting the future actions of an individual person, not so much. That would effectively mean that every person would be sentenced and required to serve the maximum penalty for any violation, even though those maximums were intended to be doled out to only the most egregious offenders.
Perhaps much more granular and specific sentencing guidelines with objective qualifiers so that sentencing was more predictable?
I’m with you on some liability for the conviction of innocent people, but that liability should also extend to juries.
You have to be careful here. Doing so can create perverse incentives that undermine justice. If a judge or a jury face such penalties, they will be inclined to reduce the penalty or feel compelled to find the defendant not guilty as a fearful precaution, even in cut and dry cases. And would you punish innocent jurors where unanimity is not required?
I think a better way to phrase this is that judges should be punished in instances of gross negligence or malfeasance. An innocent person going to prison or early release in which a criminal commits another crime, on its own, does not necessarily imply this.
would be hyper-cautious
That's a desirable effect. Your argument is the very reason the 5th amendment exists. Making it easier to find someone guilty is a BAD thing, not a good thing.
No one would take the job first. Being a public servant is already pretty thankless and doesn’t pay very well. Second, if they did take the job, they wouldn’t do anything, since the consequences of being wrong are so high, why take the chance? Public opinion would then flip the other way, and they are either a wheat stalk flowing with the wind or they quit.
The goal should be truth. Otherwise the easiest way to make it hard to find someone guilty is to make it only confessions under no duress are admissible.
And the hyper-cautious effect isn’t because of fear of getting it wrong. It’s fear of retaliation whether right or wrong.
People from other jobs are potentially in jeopardy for negligence though. If a truck driver makes a mistake driving a truck they could very well go to prison.
Also, judges can be malicious too.
Right but truck drivers aren't constantly dealing with people who are lying to get themselves out of trouble.
And while all jobs include at least some element of dealing with people trying to deceive you, if I'm an embedded engineer dealing with a vendor overstating the low-temperature performance of their embedded compute module, the stakes are a lot lower.
The point is that when your job has an "larger than normal" impact on the course of someone's life you should not be able to ignore that responsibility. Responsibility should be matched with equal sized accountability.
I'd rather have a system that occasionally let someone go free because of insufficient proof than occasionally have people be imprisoned when they are actually innocent.
Going through the guy's 'CV' from the article, I guess one of the reasons the authorities never went "all the way to 11" to catch him, is that the harm he did was relatively 'small' - meaning of financial nature - he didn't physically hurt/murdered anyone. (I am not OK-ing what he did, I just think that if you got 100 killers out and about please catch them and the $200k guy will be caught sooner or later by some bureaucratic control).
His actions caused the real person to go to jail for 2 years.
So it would be better. No innocent would go to prison. Abolishing system is valid option. If it is clearly failing it is not worth keeping.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. The notion that if something isn't perfect, it must be abolished is, simply put, ridiculous.
Trivially, if you have no criminal justice system, no innocent person would go to prison; it's as foolish as claiming there would be no poverty if there were no human beings. But crime would increase. The bulwark against those who do not live according to moral principles, who do not respect the law, would be removed, as such people respond only to the fear of punishment.
And the law and the justice system are also instructive. Part of their purpose is to teach. You will not teach justice without being just, and that entails punishment. The severity of the punishment is proportionate to the severity of the crime precisely because it signals and communicates to the perp that severity. It is feedback, hence instructive. A just person already accepts such punishment as just.
It is far better to focus on reform, but in order to do that, you first have to have a good understanding of what the law is all about. And I admit: our criminal justice system does need improvement and reform.
How about we bring back juries, big and truly random ones (at least 12 people, not haggled over, not filtered). Then give the jury some options to sanction judges and lawyers for blatant bullshit. It doesn't have to be harsher than firing them.
All legitimate government power is supposed to come from the people, I feel like that's often forgotten, especially when it comes to the least accountable branch of government.
Take a glance at US news today. US politics would be far more likely to punish judges for a Type II error—for failing to convict or institutionalize a person who goes on to commit a crime—than for the Type I error of violating the rights of an innocent person. The system you've proposed, if you step back from the heated emotions for a moment, would the exact opposite effect of the righteous justice you seek.
Any system you'd build in this mold, the criminal justice mold, would be the same or a clone of the current one, inheriting the same flaws. The prosecuting agency would be lenient towards Type I errors, because few people care; and I think in the net it'd increase their occurrence, by severely penalizing Type II errors.
edit: (And to the point out the obvious in plain sight—look at the very newspaper story we're discussing. The "criminal that got away with it" is in the headline/title. The "innocent person horribly abused by indifferent criminal justice" is mentioned in passing about 21 paragraphs down).
You do realize that when you're making new laws you can make those laws say anything you want, right?
But you can't make them do anything you want.
You can, its called a tank.
Tanks can't go door to door on enough of the populace.
If it's a law that's unpopular enough, it's not enforceable pretty much anywhere. Even less so in the US, because of the staggering number of civilian owned guns.
Tank go through door
Right, but there's too many doors
Tanks can go through some of the doors, especially as long as you know there isn't a basement. So if you have a small segment of a population you need to go through doors on, sure.
But if it's enough of the population, then tanks don't work to enforce the laws.
Even that, can't make them do anything you want. It makes them die.
In a system of government founded on a Constitution, those laws have to follow the Constitution (at least in an eventually-consistent way). (Or the Constitution must be amended, or a revolution has to happen; neither of the latter two are possible by a legislature acting alone.)
You don't need a constitution for this purpose, even though a constitution can have practical benefit. And furthermore, you'd only be passing the buck by appealing to a constitution. I could just ask whether the constitution is arbitrary, and in this case, you could not appeal to anything to ground or constrain it. The ultimate ground for the written law is the moral law, such that the first is a determination of the second given the circumstances of a given jurisdiction. Note also the distinction between lex and ius.
It’s not that you need a constitution, but rather than many democratic governments have a constitution and that must be considered in the context of “when you're making new laws you can make those laws say anything you want”.
Changing the constitution is changing the law.
Not exactly. The idea that law can be arbitrary is a severe and tyrannical perversion of the law. Human law is a circumstantial determination of the moral law (or ethical principles, if you will) and the demands of justice. Lex iniusta non est lex (an unjust law is not a law). So we are not at complete liberty to legislate arbitrarily just because we think we have the power to do so. Indeed, we run the risk of passing laws that aren't laws at all, but only have the appearance of law.
Furthermore, determining the law is not the same as determining the outcome of having that law on the books. The law is permissive about many immoral behaviors, at least in part because the enforcement of laws regulating such behaviors would cause greater harm than the behavior in question. Prudential judgement among lawmakers is necessary to determine what should and should not be regulated.
Downvoters: this is a nice nutshell statement of a thoroughly respectable thesis, relevant to the thread. I like Hayek's Law, Legislation, and Liberty for a long version, if you don't understand how it can possibly be reasonable.
"we can't ever look to make decision-makers accountable because I'm afraid accountability will be used as a political cudgel"
Personally, I see no issue with increased accountability on both of these fronts. If you sign up to be the person who gets to decide whether other humans are put in a concrete box for years at a time, you should be willing to face the highest levels of scrutiny for your decision making. And if you are wrong there should be harsh punishments for your failures.
I'm in agreement with this, provided that the same level of scrutiny is applied when assessing the circumstances that led to a misstep in judgment/sentencing.
When people have no arguments they post this type of long meandering messages on HN. Please stop wasting people time.
GPT-6 is up to the task! No bad ruling just before lunch! Also it’ll be just as secure as the Diebold voting machines! /s
Prosecutors get away with murder. Literally. Suggesting that reining in prosecutorial immunity would create overly timid prosecutors is a false choice.
I am curious, what could have been done differently?
This started more than 30 years ago. The internet as we thinking about it did not exist. Computers were just going around. Most it was physical copies which could not be centralized/shared at scale till the internet came around.
I am just trying to think about what kind of system would account for all the changes that have happened and prevented this while also accounting for the reverse where the real person suddenly had someone trying to steal their identity also accounting for the fact this system has to be valid for the future. Maybe it is a failure of my imagination, but I can only think of ways to do it for the current state of the world, assuming the world never changes.
If I had life in prison or a death penalty hanging over my head at work after getting all the prerequisites to be a judge I better be getting paid seven figures or I'm either becoming a scrum master or a defence attorney trying to abuse the guillotine to ensure client satisfaction.
Do you think you yourself would do better?
Are crime rates significantly lower in US States that have the death penalty? Are crime rates lower in States that punish more severely compared to States that punish less severely?
The state of art in preventing crime is to focus on rehabilation and education, not punishment. So it would be novel if the statistics prove that punishment works better.
From what I read (in the Ars Technica story on this), the real Woods seems to be in fairly bad shape. At least homeless, maybe mentally challenged. It seems that may have happened, even if his identity had not been stolen, but I am not aware enough of the story's details, to render any kind of semi-authoritative judgment.
It's highly likely that at least one lawyer is already salivating over this, and will help him to sue, but I’m not confident that the real Woods will benefit.
This was a nightmare story, and I would hope that the fake Woods gets real jail time.
I was wondering how there were no family members, old friends etc that could prove his word but that explains it. Quite sad, but also maybe a mental hospital is better than being homeless
> maybe a mental hospital is better than being homeless
We seem to have come full circle. One of the big reasons for the enormous homeless population, is because all the mental hospitals were closed, in the 1980s and 90s.
I think that news stories about [very real] abuses in these hospitals, along with the cost to maintain, were responsible.
You can yell "Get a job!" at schizophrenics, all you want, but it won't make them employable, or even able to live on their own.
There are a number of mental illnesses that can be treated, and recovery is possible, but that only accounts for a fairly small percentage of the severely mentally ill. I know a large number of folks that have done it, but for every one of them, there's a hundred more, that couldn't get it.
It's just that treating mental illness is hugely unpopular with the vast majority of folks that don't have any family or associates with mental illness, and even more unpopular with folks that have undiagnosed mental illness (It's quite possible to have a long, productive life, with some forms of mental illness -it can even be helpful, in some careers).
Hospitals were closed with the release of new drugs that promised to treat mental illnesses. They didn’t deliver, but the hospitals were closed anyway.
...and the fact people were horribly abused, it became widely published, and public outcry was a big factor in closing the "hospitals" that didn't treat their patients.
People were not "horribly abused" - that was a narrative by fiscal conservatives to slash programs.
Strange how those patients ended up primarily in jails and prisons, and the street, where they received no treatment, and homelessness and mental health issues got much worse.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/stor...
The history of women being sent to mental hospitals for being uppity is pretty clear.
It wasn't a fictional narrative, it actually happened.
We can agree that the results were worse but you can't pretend that the abuse was made up by Republicans.
Someone here once linked to this story: https://archive.ph/PrGLB
That is a truly wild bunch of historical revisionism. In the 70's there was a push for greater mental health treatment.
Reagan repealed the Mental Health Systems Act (the result of a commission under Carter) as part of his "small government" mantra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
Reagan was elected as a conservative backlash to Carter's progressive policies. We're talking about someone so petty he ripped functioning solar panels off the roof of the White House.
I think it speaks to a lack of practical empathy. Society has costs, and people need different things from that society, which often changes over time. "I don't want my taxes doing to [schools|mental hospitals|Roads|Elderly care]" statements ignore the things people DO get benefits from, or might if their circumstances change.
A lot of it might be coming from deteriorating social bonds. A propensity to see your neighbor as a number, a statistic, rather than a fully fleshed human being with the same human needs and weaknesses as you.
Sure, with a little bit of High School Civics. If it's not made explicitly clear what membership in a functioning society gets you, and you're not shown what other people experience, and you don't receive obvious assistance by being a member of that society, you get %waves hand around at everything in general%
Deinstitutionalization was primarily a cost cutting measure. Sure they paid lip service to "community support", but that either never arrived or was cut shortly after.
A lot of the abuses were IMHO caused by underfunding.
Eugenics by free market.
Eugenics by free market
That hit harder than I expected, for someone whose loved ones were crippled by primarily schizophrenia. Even two generations back, such people would be cared by family or community, but now they have practically no one. The system is working as intended, it seems.
Sad.
1,000's of new yorkers would rather be homeless, even in freezing winter, than go to a crowded, dangerous regular shelter. "Fifty people died in the mental health shelters during a recent four-year period, records show. About half of those deaths occurred after suspected drug overdoses...Eight people staying in the shelters killed themselves. More than 1,400 fights broke out during the same span, with more than half of those resulting in “serious injury.” ...It’s extremely dangerous and deadly,” she said. “You would be terrified to go to sleep, let alone use the restroom.”...20 to a room...2018 to 2021 and found that more than 7,400 serious incidents (deaths, injuries, assaults)" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/nyregion/nyc-subway-shovi...
The worst that ever happened to non-violent me was being poisoned with a painful, nauseating antipsychotic. That caused me to be more depressed and the psych wards are boring in america compared to countries that have computers or at least FM radios. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ufnii4xlirvvnhlwegorf/quackLa...
From what I read (in the Ars Technica story on this), the real Woods seems to be in fairly bad shape. At least homeless, maybe mentally challenged. It seems that may have happened, even if his identity had not been stolen, but I am not aware enough of the story's details, to render any kind of semi-authoritative judgment.
It sounds like he wasn't homeless and mentally challenged when he originally met Keirans many years prior. Perhaps it was the string of false warrants, debt, and other criminal use of his identity that caused him to become homeless and mentally challenged. It's very hard to get and maintain employment when you show up with outstanding felony warrants and poor credit during a background check or records search.
Quite possible. The story that I read didn't go into detail about it.
Reminds me a bit of the movie Trading Places.
My (non-American) reaction to this was immediately “that’s so American”. It’s just absurd. I would not put the actual thief at the top of the list if who’s to blame there. That is clearly a cultural / systems issue, through and through.
Where do you live where these things don't happen?
Not sure about parent comment, but I am in Europe and identity theft is basically non-existent. And I'm not sure why is that.
Also document forgeries are not a thing (when I see TV shows where teenagers try to buy alcohol using a fake driving license that really feels "American").
Really, I am not sure why this kind of illegal things are unheard of in EU, but there might be some sort of systematic reason.
Not sure about parent comment, but I am in Europe and identity theft is basically non-existent. And I'm not sure why is that.
This perception likely comes from your selection of news sources. Identity theft is not unique to the United States.
Stories like the linked one are not common at all. The rarity is actually why it’s a noteworthy news story.
Also document forgeries are not a thing (when I see TV shows where teenagers try to buy alcohol using a fake driving license that really feels "American").
Again, TV shows are not representative of what happens in the real world. We have far more advanced IDs than decades ago when they were more easily spoofed. We also have routine undercover checks against gas stations and grocery stores where agents attempt to purchase alcohol with fake IDs. Depending on the state, the penalties for failing to check obvious fake IDs can be quite significant including suspending your ability to handle checkout jobs for a period of time.
American news media and TV shows are not representative of daily life here.
Some European countries have quite good governmental registers of the population, perhaps making it more difficult to "fake it"? It happens, of course, but gets more difficult when everything is connected
In the US, credit, a private system, is used for everything. If you know how to use it, though, you can get things you'd never be able to afford, be allowed memberships to clubs and organizations, or even hold jobs that others with lesser credit are deemed unfit for.
I've been the victim of identity theft eight times since the Equifax breach, and at some point, I felt like I was just feeding cats to coyotes [0] and stopped fixing it. Unsurprisingly, it stopped. Why spend the effort maintaining excellent credit and not getting credit for it?
The only thing people used my credit to do in all cases except the last was open retail credit cards and max them out at baby clothes stores and lingerie shops. You couldn't believe the trouble I was in when those first bills came.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....
Also document forgeries are not a thing
That's such an odd thing to say. This is just the tip of the iceberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel
Much of Europe has national ID cards, which at least provide a better baseline for identity than the USA. We have…social security numbers that are easy to fudge.
Why do so many Europeans commenting online seem to believe that television is real? Could media literacy really be that poor in Europe?
I think it's because all the financial systems for 95% of daily life are not tied to your identity in the same way as in the US.
There is no long trail of credit and debt that will chase you, requiring validation and checks at every step in your life. So getting someone's identity doesn't change much. getting anything from a phone subscription to student loans, to getting jobs is basically equal no matter what. They aren't allowed to block you except in rare situations. They aren't allowed to request a lot of the information you would need in the US.
And if your identity get's stolen in Europe the systems in place are way more flexible and reversible. So if a theft is found, it's effects are reasonably easy to undo.
Ever noticed how identity theft in the US is never directly stolen items or money? It's all about getting access to systems (credit / accounts / banking).
The ease of making your way across the US into different jurisdictions is probably a contributing factor. I imagine the geographical equivalent of this story would be a person from portugal driving their way across europe and landing in poland where they live out the rest of their lives under a different identity. It’s a lot tougher to do that when you’re crossing into a new country, culture, language entirely. And portugal is small enough that it would be very difficult to pull off within the confines of the country.
Perhaps its because most have passports, and a passport is often used as the proof of ID? In my home country every citizen gets an identity card with some important details on it. ID theft is basically non-existent there.
they're saying that blaming the thief for the result instead of the systemic flaws is American.
That's the stuff of nightmares. I hope the real Woods sues the system that put him through this.
On the positive side, if he was using his social security number for 35 years, he’ll be fully paid up for the real Woods to draw at retirement.
Really good point here - couldnt the fake woods claim he was indeed the one paying into it, and claim it after he’s released from jail?
If the court has any credibility, they should first jail the fake one for a long time, then make things like his ss payments restitution for the real woods.
"I'm not crazy!" "That's what a crazy person would say!"
Honestly once you're at the whims of an overzealous psychologist you're boned. Potentially. I hope the real Woods gets to sue everyone involved in declaring him mentally incompetent, that declaration took away his rights as a human being.
Reminds me of a case where someone got put in a mental hospital for eight days because they wouldn't admit Obama didn't follow them on Twitter.
(He did. He follows me, too; it was back in the days of auto-follow-back scripts.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/24/th...
The real woods should reap all the benefits of the false woods’ misdeeds with none of the consequences. Get his house, car, job, even wife!
Forcibly medicating a man for insisting on his innocence, even if his guilt seems certain, is another nightmarish aspect of this situation. By all means imprison the guy, but forcing him onto mind altering drugs because he refuses to admit his guilt is over the line.
causing the other man to be falsely imprisoned for identity theft and sent to a mental hospital.
To me that is the bigger crime. How comes the government can't recognize who is the real Woods and imprisons the wrong person?
Because birth certificates don't have DNA. Social security numbers were never meant to be used for identification. Etc.
But before you send someone to prison you should be sure you investigated properly.
Did they question any relatives of him?
In our system, one of the most serious crimes is inconveniencing a cop while poor.
How often does it actually happen that rich people give money to cops who conduct a proper investigation (before or after)? Looks rather unbelievable to me.
That's not at all what I said. I'm just saying that cops are on average more responsive to the needs of the "right" people than the "wrong" ones. And in the US, having money (e.g., nice house, nice car, or here, a literal nice bank balance) does a lot to make you right.
Part of that is, I'm sure, their own interests. If they throw a rich person in jail for no good reason, it's much more likely to come back on them than if it's some homeless dude. But part of it's just that it's the implicit job of cops to enforce not just legal order, but the social order.
The cops dealing with poor people are often different from the ones dealing with rich people. But let’s say you are in a city with lots of poor (unhoused) and rich people: the cops are pretty mean to everyone in those, since they get beat down pretty quickly. Move over next door tot eh suburb that ships unhoused people next door, the cops are much nicer.
I was nearly killed last year by a negligent driver and sustained significant injuries. If the driver hadn't had a suspension, the cop would have let him go without any tickets whatsoever. He got one ticket for the suspension and was given a wrist slap punishment.
The cop ignored the testimony of an eyewitness who saw everything, turned off his bodycam for 18 minutes to ensure the witness statement wasn't recorded, and was conciliatory toward the driver, literally saying it wasn't his fault. The prosecutor issued me a notice to testify in court only three days in advance and was uninterested in knowing what happened to me or doing anything once the defendant and cop didn't bother to show up. The "trial" was held four months after the collision. The police department took five months to release the bodycam video.
Business as usual for the American injustice system. You don't have to bribe the police if they're already biased in your favor.
That’s not really how it goes. There are layers to it. Above all though, poor people are gross and a nuisance, whereas employed family men are humans just like you and me.
…obviously not my own opinion.
You don't need to give money to a cop to make that happen. People that have no money are an easy target for any kind of abuse, including from cops. They have no lobby. No media outrage if a poor person is falsely imprisoned. No lawyers coming to hound you. The person may even not be in a state alert enough to understand what's going on.
A wealthy person has favors to call in, lawyers on call, all the things that entirely legally make a cops live hard.
So now, you're a cop and under pressure to arrest someone in a case. Homeless or mansion owner, who do you pick?
There is no direct bribery outside elected officials. But there is lot of nepotism have the right connections and those in power will sort things out by ordering lower levels to make it go away.
If this were true, we wouldn't have homeless encampments, open drug use and street crime in major American cities.
School mates…
This is one of those edge cases where DNA databases are invaluable, as they do not lie (retests can be done if an error is suspected) and the data (genetic provenance) cannot be destroyed (such that a vital record or entire archive could be). You can “walk” the vital record web/matrix from known good identity to unknown identity.
Vital records should probably have DNA attached. Maybe eventually they will.
What happens when that data inevitable gets stolen? The fact that biometrics cannot be changed or removed is also a huge drawback.
Would proper IDs helped avoid the issue? Not necesarily state-of-the-art biometric ones that we have already (on this side of the pond) but even rudimentary with owner photo, personal ID and document ID?
The real Woods was a homeless, while the fake woods had a job and family. The police and justice system are very biased, it is a well known fact.
University of Iowa Police Detective Ian Mallory opened an investigation into the case. Mallory found the biological father listed on Woods’ birth certificate — which both Woods and Keirans had sent him an official copy of — and tested the father’s DNA against Woods’ DNA. The test proved Woods was the man’s son.
Detective Mallory is the hero of this story. He believed a man who few people would at that point.
I'd watch the movie about detective Mallory.
I'd watch it twice if Tom Hanks played detective Mallory.
Only if Leonardo DiCaprio plays the guy faking his identity for 35 years.
Alice and Bob are on a crime spree and planning their next hit, but Detective Mallory inserts himself into their communications and sets up a sting using a replay attack against Bob.
He didn't even necessarily act on belief, he was just diligent.
This. There's no substitute for competence.
What's horrifying to me is that the real Woods should have been appointed a defense attorney, and it seems that that attorney didn't believe him either or even make an effort to act as though they did. It should have been his defense attorney back during the trial who thought to hunt down the father and do a DNA test.
He very probably did have a public defender, who seems to have done a very good job by the metric of what most public defenders understand their job to be: negociating with the DA.
Woods managed to not serve any additonal time after sentencing and didn't even have to admit guilt for that.
If he was homeless it's almost assured that he had a public defender. An LA public defender is so overloaded that[1]:
L.A. public defenders are carrying workloads that require 4,160 hours of work or more to effectively represent their clients. That is more than double the amount of work hours available in a year, assuming no vacation or sick time is taken.
1: https://www.aclusocal.org/en/press-releases/los-angeles-lags...
I was in jail and regularly saw where people were caught in traffic stops and gave their siblings name. They were allowed to leave, but later an arrest warrant was put out and the sibling was arrested. I was actually in court three times when I saw this come up, so it must happen much more frequently than that.
gave their siblings name.
so the name doesn't match their driver license? Or they're driving without one? I would imagine a cop just taking the name on face value seems negligent.
University of Iowa Police Detective Ian Mallory.. tested the father’s DNA against Woods’ DNA. The test proved Woods was the man’s son.
Such an obvious thing to do.
Why it had to reach to University police for this to be initiated, why LA police did not do this at the start? Why the judge who sent the real Woods to mental hospital asked this to be done before giving that 'judgement'?
My guess is LAPD deals with drugged up violent stupid crime every day and some nut job homeless guy making crazy claims 99.99% of the time is just crazy, so why bother? On the other hand it's an interesting case for a Uni Iowa PD detective that has to deal with underage college kids buying beer?
Well, yes. Bias and laziness. Not behaviours that are acceptable in the justice system.
It may also be that establishing which people you need to sample to substantiate somebody’s claims of lineage, gathering the consent and the samples (potentially across jurisdictions), testing to judicial standards, and procuring expert interpretation involves a fair amount of professionals’ time and energy, as well as substantial cost. It seems like much of the judicial system depends on things being largely within the realm of the reasonably imaginable, and this crime is so weird. I mean—sustaining that level of imposture for 35 years? A sane-seeming person being able to document 35 years of living under this name, in formal paperwork that’s legible to the state? When is that ever the most likely explanation?
I think back over the number of marginal people I’ve met, many of whom are in altered mental states either temporary or permanent, who claim to be secretly Rothschilds, or spurned princes, or reincarnated deities, or representatives of extraterrestrial species… while the long delay in applying technology here delayed the fix to a travesty, I understand why the policy for the routine use of that technology may be what it is.
If anything, I’d be curious how the detective got authorization to apply so much time and so many resources to running this claim to ground.
This is why any identification period should start from birth. Parents and relatives, possible kindergarten, home addresses, schools, etc. Something that might be much harder for the thieve to remember. And too many failures in these should destroy any later evidence completely.
How would this work for "any identification period"? Any time I want to apply for a credit card or move house or enrol in a school, someone responsible needs to quiz me on all those things and verify them in a way that is secure, yet doesn't leak information to the next identity thief?
This is madness. Instead, you have a fairly rigorous process for some form of state-issued ID, and allow using that to reduce friction in every other identification process.
In this case, the identity thief fraudulently obtained a state ID, and later a birth certificate, which really does "start from birth". The institutions that issued him with those probably could have done better, but they can't stop everyone, and they need to make some tradeoffs when demanding documentation from decades ago just to let their citizens participate in society.
I generally agree with this point of view, because a 100% failsafe solution can be so costly. I think medicine is a good example of how the cost of perfection scales badly.
However, it sounds like significant resources went to institutionalizing the person. Maybe that's good for the police who get to take the cost off their books. The government overall is still paying.
I'd prefer police detectives to use biases based on past experiences. Otherwise they are bad detectives. Your assertion is perfunctory and hollow.
But an inevitable part of ANY decision-making system.
Your world is awfully black and white.
Ok, but probability doesn't work like that. Even if 99.99% of the time a given individual is delusional, you still have to check every time because this person might be the 0.01%. It's like the question of "you flip a coin 9 times in a row, and it has come up heads all 9 times. If you flip the coin a 10th time, how likely is it to be heads?"
Also, and perhaps even more importantly, if you aren't actually checking every time, then you don't actually know what the statistics for delusional vs not are, you're just guessing.
Your resources are limited, DNA tests aren’t free and doing the footwork takes labor. The claim is evaluated, triaged, and then prioritized.
If we put more resources into the system, throwing caution to the wind is much more likely.
I'm not sure what you mean about throwing more resources into the system, but as regards the DNA evidence, in this specific circumstances just asking the fraud "What's your Dad's name?" was sufficient. No expensive DNA test needed
they’re police officers trying to do their best with limited time, not mathematicians trying to prove a point
I am also not a mathematician, and indeed got fairly mediocre math grades throughout most of my education. But you don't need to be PhD candidate to understand that if you never actually check, you never actually know.
My guess is LAPD deals with drugged up violent stupid crime every day and some nut job homeless guy making crazy claims 99.99% of the time is just crazy, so why bother?
No, something more than that went wrong. From the article:
> The real Woods was arrested and charged with identity theft and false impersonation, under a misspelling of Keirans’ name: Matthew Kierans.
I would bet that Woods did not supply that name to the authorities. (How would he have known it?) It had to have come from Keirans. But that changes the story from "some nut job homeless guy making crazy claims" to "a dispute between two people who know each other".
Doesn't this happen on the boarder from time to time?
A US Citizen will be deported to Mexico because they didn't happen to have an ID and the agent just thought he was in the 99.9% of people claiming they are citizens? Then they get stuck in the system and it takes a lot to get back into the country and prove who they are.
How did they have such easy access to the father's DNA?
They asked the father for it.
They couldn't ask: "Is this your son?"
They couldn't ask: "Is this your son?"
If the father didn't want to see the son, probably not.
When you are before a judge who is questioning your identity, seems like the time to pull out all the stops. Childhood friends, neighbors, pastor, estranged parents.
Considering how the real Woods was homeless and took over 30 years to even try to do anything about it, I think it's fair to assume he didn't have much, if any, social capital to draw on.
That is asking for a lot of executive decision making for people who might have no more bandwidth left due to more urgent matters.
I and my ex had to provide ADN samples to justify that her baby wasn't mine. We had lived separately for nearly 2 years, but the baby was born before our divorce was official, hence without a father's name government was saying it was mine. Both of us were agreeing to the judge it wasn't mine, but she didn't want to reveal the real name of the father, because it was an abusive person.
As much as I dreamed to have an afro haircut as a kid, the baby was obviously not mine with darker skin, dark frizzy hairs typical of black people while I and my ex are both whites and blonds.
That wouldn't resolve the matter though, no matter what his answer was. It would always proceed to a DNA test anyways. And, who's to say they didn't first do what you suggest anyways?
A private detective acquired it. Most likely he rummaged through some trash.
homeless with no money and no representation gets you these results
really embarrassing for the California system, I want to know if there is any path for correcting this given the Iowa judgement and the Federal judgement
Theoretically, I believe (in addition to the police's duty to get the right guy) the accused is supposed to have a defence attorney who goes looking for exculpatory evidence.
AIUI America has an "adversarial" legal system, where the court is not involved in investigating the facts of the case. Instead, the defence and prosecution each make the strongest possible case and the judge and jury have to make their decision based on the evidence presented to them. For example the judge and jury don't get to question witnesses directly.
In contrast, Germany has an "inquisitorial" justice system, where the judges are actively involved in investigating the facts of the case and get to question witnesses and suchlike.
Can I just point out the hilarious disparity of punishment in this statement:
Matthew David Keirans, 58, was convicted of one count of false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution — punishable by up to 30 years in federal prison — and one count of aggravated identity theft — punishable by up to two years in federal prison.
He was indicted Dec. 12, on five counts of false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
It's actually 6 years max per false statement charge, so in total 30 years.
Literally the next sentence after what you quoted:
He pleaded guilty Monday to one count of each charge, and the other counts were dropped.
He was indicted for five counts and two, but that just means that's what the prosecution was going to try to get him for. He pled guilty to one of each, presumably to avoid an even harsher possible sentence.
Standard plea deal is usually pleading out to one or two charges from a whole host of shit that the prosecutor threw at the wall, but probably couldn't get a conviction on at trial.
I don't believe that's correct?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1006
I believe this may be the same law referred to as "the headshot" in HBO's The Wire?
The creator of the show discusses it further online:
https://davidsimon.com/kwame-brown-another-federal-case-anot...
Thanks for the USC reference, I read 5 counts but glossed over the fact that that was the indictment. And thanks for the piece on The Wire, that was a nice read.
I suppose the disparity is as a result in the difference of aggrieved party. Steal from a bank, off with your head. Steal from a person. Meh.
You’re allowed to scam whomever you want except for the wealthy or connected.
That's because "aggravated identity theft" can never be the only crime you are convicted for. It is always dependent on another felony. The identity theft just adds two years on-top of whatever the other crime would've gotten you.
Here, of course the two extra years don't matter, but if you commit identity theft to steal your grandma's candies, I don't think you should be getting 30 years in prison.
I suppose it may have something to do with the guy becoming homeless, and they don't want to show the whole extent of the horrors that they made real guy go through.
That was a pretty wild story, but honestly what disturbed me the most was right near the beginning:
one count of false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution — punishable by up to 30 years in federal prison — and one count of aggravated identity theft — punishable by up to two years in federal prison.
So you get 30 years for lying to a bank, but only two years for stealing someone's identity for decades, resulting in the real person being involuntarily committed to a mental institution just for insisting they are who they actually are?
It should be the other way around. Two years for the lie, 30 years for the identity theft.
It wasn’t just any bank, it was a bank insured by the U.S. government. The U.S. government does not take being lied to lightly.
By the way, anyone who has applied for a mortgage in the U.S. has seen many, many warnings about how lying on a mortgage application is a federal crime that carries very serious penalties.
you have it backwards, this is just how the federal government establishes jurisdiction over things it can otherwise not constitutionally regulate, but wishes to.
if you can't think of which specific clause of the constitution allows for that law, it is either comes from financial rails that the federal government extended outwards, or interstate commerce.
It might come from:
“To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;”
U.S. Const. Art. I, Sec. 8.
If a mortgage is a security in this context. But I don’t know for sure. Usually the answer is the Commerce Clause.
He was indicted Dec. 12, on five counts of false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
5 charges for a total of 30 years, so 6 years max per charge. Much more reasonable than 30 for a single one.
Did you not read the very next sentence?
He pleaded guilty Monday to one count of each charge, and the other counts were dropped.
The max sentences in the lede are explicitly identified as being for one count of each, and that's all he was convicted of.
What strikes me here is that they get thirty years for this at all. What he did was absolutely horrible, but a thirty year sentence seems excessive. That's, as I understand it, more than other countries give you for murder. This was a non-violent (albeit terrible) crime.
That's because "aggravated identity theft" can never be the only crime you are convicted for. It is always dependent on another felony. The identity theft just adds two years on-top of whatever the other crime would've gotten you.
Here, of course the two extra years don't matter, but if you commit identity theft to steal your grandma's candies, I don't think you should be getting 30 years in prison.
Suddenly, the government having my DNA record seems less terrible. I’m only half kidding…
So you trust the database to be exact?
Classic case of letting perfect be the enemy of good. Try harder next time, jj999.
DNA would be significantly harder to fake over 35 years when you're still walking around with your own DNA. Is it perfect? No, but it's a lot more trustworthy in this case than an SSN or driver's license were.
But you don't need DNA to prove it though. You have interacted with other people in the past. Parents, siblings, relatives, school mates, teachers, bosses, medical records, taxes etc.
If imperfect is fine then all of these are options too.
Not to mention... Photo id.
Did you read the article? Clearly not. Gtfo.
I did read the article, which clearly stated that after they had sent an innocent man into a mental institution against his will a detective decided to track down the man's father. And a DNA test proved that what the innocent man said was true.
Which begs the question: why was the judge/court so incompetent/malicious that they didn't do that in the first place?
The danger is that a contaminated sample is recorded under your name and the other person commits a crime. Your freedom is contingent on the diligence of an underpaid lab tech.
What makes this story interesting is that he built a more valuable identity than the real William Woods did. This court case destroyed that value, as the hospital likely won't employ either of them, even though presumably Keirans was doing an acceptable job up until now. Perhaps the smart thing for Keirans to do would have been to find Woods and pay him to swap identities. I wonder if anyone's ever pulled that off?
I believe you are actually allowed to call yourself whatever you wish in common law countries. There had to be more to that than just using a different name.
Yes, this is correct. Provided you are not doing it to deceive it's perfectly legal in the UK - however you can't go changing other details like your date of birth, which Kierans did here. The problem in the UK is many people in places like banks are unaware of this and they obviously cause difficulties for people when the account name and their given name do not match, even when explained (I have a relative with this situation) - it's not often enough to make it impossible merely very inconvenient at times (the relative of mine is in their 80s and been mostly fine since getting an account aa a child)
I've had a lot of problems changing my name with my bank in the UK to a name of a different gender. Despite bringing a valid deed poll signed by two witnesses that stated someone with my old name is now using my new name, validating I owned my card with my PIN and bringing along my passport showing that the person with my previous name did indeed look like me, they denied my request saying that "Anybody could do that"... which I believe is sort of the point
So her birth and ID name is "Nancy Betty" but her bank account is under "Katie Rosie" and also all acquaintances know her under "Katie Rosie"?
Lol he could've just changed his name, and the imposter would have been caught off guard.
There have been cases where identical twins have impersonated each other.
As a European it's baffling to me that this is even possible. Afaik this is close to impossible here. Everyone has a mandatory ID card with a chip on it that's used to identify you. Maybe it sounds dystopian but so is getting drugged up in a mental hospital in a case of mistaken identity ... I mean WTAF. Not that these wild exception should determine the rule either.
I suspect the US system where each of the 50 US states have their own rules for birth certificates, id cards, etc, is the big reason.
So, for example, you can craft fake id for one state...and it doesn't have to be good enough to fool anyone in that state. Just good enough to fool any one of the other 49. Which you then can bootstrap into a "real id" from that second state.
Especially given this happened decades ago. It has become much harder over time.
In the UK we don't have mandatory ID and also seem to manage to not bang people up like that.
Everyone has a mandatory ID card with a chip on it that's used to identify you.
Or you just get rid of your documents, claim to be a refugee, and just fabricate all the data.
Oh, a chip. Must be foolproof, right? ;-)
Everyone has a mandatory ID card with a chip on it that's used to identify you.
Only in some European countries
I think that in Spain, or any other country with a national ID card, this would be mucho more difficult. Police has fingerprints of everyone. In case someone says someone else is using his identity, the police just need to check the fingerprint with the national ID database.
Someone steals your identity, and is also committed enough to burn off their fingerprints in a way that looks accidental. What now?
That wouldn't work unless they manage to burn off your finger prints too.
In general IDs also have photos and currently everything is digital/stored so there is a trace of previous documents issued thus apart from burning off fingerprintes a face operation would be needed... or hacking national databases...
You become a Phoenix Wright antagonist.
Well, I can still prove I am the real one? And he can't prove he's me... He didn't burn my fingerprints off.
None of the petty crimes he was wanted for seemed worth the effort he put into maintaining the false identity. It makes me wonder whether there is more to uncover.
Agreed. He must have done something terrible and was running from it.
He is already in too deep with this. He already has a family, job and probably a mortgage. A full situation in which everyone think he is "Woods".
Maybe just the crime of the identity theft itself.
Preventing 30 years of jail time is a big motivation.
You might be shocked how quickly it becomes "I'm an outlaw that can't exist normally in society"
It doesn't seem that way to you, but it's shocking the jobs that will be choosy. Things are a bit different now, changing culture, labor shortages, etc.
However especially ~1990s-2010ish, the mindset was "as long as there are people out there without issues, we will hire from that pool of candidates". So practically having more than a parking ticket could result in mass rejection from jobs. Sorry, but we have 20 candidates with NO parking tickets, so get lost.
Probably just unfortunate timing when he met his wife, and then had to keep using the name for fear of losing his wife/girlfriend?
Reminds me of the MIT dean that lied about her credentials and kept her job for years.
Marilee Jones, MIT Dean of Admissions, worked there for years before she was found out. When her lack of any(!) degree was uncovered, she had to resign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilee_Jones
19 years at the helm. She worked hard to keep a system that works hard to keep people like her out. She's a hypocrite and they would have looked like hypocrites too, had they let her keep her job.
We should celebrate Marilee Jones every year - perhaps on the first day of school in homage to anyone who has truly faked it till they made it!
IIRC she was credited with making MIT a more diverse place; she really was good at her job.
BUT ... I've worked for a couple of major universities (not MIT, but similar), and you would not believe what degree snobs they are. Ideally, even staff should have a "terminal" degree from as famous a school as possible. The whole image is part of what they're selling.
> When her lack of any(!) degree
> was uncovered, she had to
> resign.
I like to think my commitment to the truth is high enough to do what Woods did and stand up for my identity, but honestly after getting out of jail and a mental institution for insisting I was Woods, I might just accept being Keirans from now on. How could it be worse than risking being sent back?
You'd be Kierans. ;-)
That was such an ironic twist to the story.
Would I, though? If I was convicted as Keirans, I should probably be able to make a stronger case for that spelling than the other!
daily reminder that know-your-customer and anti-money laundering laws are completely ineffective and wasting everyone's time
AML/KYC is a joke
reminder that this guy was doing this before, during and after the patriot act was passed, for another 22 years
this is a reminder that the only reason people aren't flying planes into buildings is because they don't want to
reminder that anyone can use anyone else's ID to open bank accounts and credit, and the entire system - the banks and the government - will consider the system to be working
reminder that if you use someone else's identity, you don't have to mess up their credit, you can just use it responsibly and they might not even care if you're improving their score. but if you do want to mess it up, there might not be consequences for that either.
this is a reminder that the only reason people aren't flying planes into buildings is because they don't want to
One of the things about reading Stand on Zanzibar that really stuck with me was, amid all these relatively spot-on predictions of societal dysfunction, from rampant corporatism to debt-trap neocolonialism to housing affordability, the contrast between Brunner's world of high-impact, low-complexity domestic terrorism and our reality. There are shockingly few people blowing up box trucks full of anfo on major bridges.
Woods was an employee at a hot dog stand, why did he steal his identity?
Probably a clean record
I think I'm missing something here. What did he have to gain from doing this? I understand that he was able to incur large amounts of debt under someone else's identity, but at that point he effectively was Woods. He was married under that name, he was employed under that name... If the authorities ever came looking for the Woods that incurred all the debt, it would be him that paid.
He probably couldn’t get a real job with his true identity.
Which is a dupe of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39919646
The real Woods was arrested and charged with identity theft and false impersonation, under a misspelling of Keirans’ name: Matthew Kierans.
Are they saying that they thought the real Woods was actually Matthew Keirans? How did they conclude that? The article is full of evidence of how the real Matthew Keirans had been pretending that he’s actually William Woods, but what evidence was there connecting the real William Woods to the name Matthew Keirans? It’s not like the real Woods would have any (fake) documentation attesting to it. Why would there be anything connecting him to the name at all?
I could see them charging him as a John Doe since they don’t know who he is but “know” he’s not William Woods but I don’t understand why they would charge him as Matthew Keirans.
Came here wondering the same thing. It's not like Woods would even had a reason to come up with Keirans' name, so did Keirans provide it when the bank was investigating? Like, "Oh, I'll bet I know who you're talking to. I'll bet it's Matthew Keirans. We've had issues in the past"?
If I were Keirans, I wouldn't even want to bring the Keirans name anywhere near Woods, lest someone realize they were switched. I'd have acted like I had no idea who might be pretending to be me.
So how did Keirans' name end up associated with Wood when he was arrested and charged?
What happened to Woods since it was uncovered? The story doesn't tell us. It showed great courage to keep fighting, even when effectively powerless.
In 1994 — six years after he started using Woods’ name — Keirans got married. He had a child, whose last name is Woods.
I wonder what goes around in the mind of the SO to accept that he couldn’t have shown anything from his past live.
ABQ! Sounds like a classic Better Call Saul story.
They should hire him to be the new Mossad guy
Which of these guys gets the social security benefits?
But why? What was the point?
[dupe]
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39919646
I know there are plenty of hyper puritanical people who would disagree with me, but I feel like people really embody the ship of theseus paradox. We're just not the same person we were decades ago. I really don't care if you were running around dealing drugs, robbing banks, stealing cars or whatever two decades ago. If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories.
I was just recently given 24 hours to pack whatever I could carry and leave my home after the landlord's daughter found out my real government name which I rarely use and found a newspaper article about where I was arrested on false charges 11 years ago. (I spent 10 years in jail awaiting trial and then the charges were dropped) Most of the newspapers completely removed all mentions of the case, bless them, but it's the Internet -- removing something from the Internet is like trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool.
After asking how I was going to manage on the streets, homeless (it was -30*C at the time), he did come to his senses somewhat and get me a couple of week's grace which let me find somewhere else to stay.
It says in this document that you (Bocock, Charles) were charged with "CHILD PORN/POSS PHOTO/VIC <13":
https://www.cookcountysheriff.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02...
And this article also states that you were charged with soliciting a girl for sex and possessing child pornography:
https://www.shawlocal.com/2019/09/04/inmate-sues-because-he-...
"Bocock was arrested and jailed June 10, 2013, after he went to a Dunkin’ Donuts in Plainfield to meet with a 12-year-old girl for sex, according to court records."
And this article too:
https://patch.com/illinois/plainfield/brit-charged-child-sex...
"In exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said, and preferred one between the ages of 7 and 11. [...] After Bocock was taken into custody, police searched his North Tripp Avenue home and found 'numerous' images of child pornography, a prosecutor said at a prior court hearing."
Also this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141106115016/http://patch.com/...
"Bocock allegedly responded to a Craigslist advertisement posted by a Plainfield resident trying to get money for his car payment. But in exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said.
"The Plainfield resident went to the police and an investigator pretending to be the cash-strapped Craigslist poster continued the online conversation with Bocock, officials said. The investigator reportedly offered Bocock his 12-year-old niece for the car payment money, and a rendezvous was set up for Monday afternoon at a Dunkin' Donuts on Route 59."
And that you are currently on the Illinois child sex offender registry for this:
https://isp.illinois.gov/Sor/Details/X23A0424
What do you have to say about that?
I was going to answer your original question, but you edited it to now say this.
If the charges were dropped; does it really matter what they have to say?
As to your original question: I had a friend get arrested for picking up their wife's (narcotic) medications the day after she died. He didn't do it with any malicious intent, just habit. The cop didn't care.
It took 4 years to get his day in court and the charges were dropped.
There are many reasons to do things, that a cop will happily make look like whatever they want in order to get an arrest.
Obviously you don't owe anyone here an explanation. But you're the one who seem to want us to believe that you were innocent enough that throwing you out of the flat was completely unjust persecution; if that's what you want, then it's reasonable to expect you to account for how such a charge came to be filed against you.
Criminal prosecution is (rightfully) hard; from a Baysean probability perspective, given no other evidence than what has been presented in this thread so far, which is more likely -- that the charges were dropped because they were a complete fantasy from the beginning, or because there were legal technicalities that would have made a conviction difficult?
(That said, maybe I'm just naive, but I'd give "Man genuinely asks a random stranger on Craigslist to help you arrange sex with a minor" a fairly low Baysean "prior"... I'd definitely be looking for evidence of a set-up if I were the police.)
Maybe you should check who you are replying to. I was originally answering your question about how things could take that long. I have no idea about OP, but I also provided an example of how cops will misconstrue things to simply get an arrest. In my own personal life, my parents had a cop search my car because they thought I was dealing drugs. The cop found a small ripped piece of paper (from who knows what), and claimed it was from rolling papers. So, I trust a cop saying "this is why X" about as far as you can throw toilet paper up their tree.
In my experience, there is a far greater probability that they are completely fabricated nonsense.
Looks like we both need to look at who we're replying to more closely -- this is my first post in the thread. ;-)
Right, so in this case, the question of "How would you account for the fact that police claimed a bit of paper was rolling paper for marijuana" is answered in part by the first sentence: The cop went in believing that drugs were almost certainly present (because a child's own parents reported them), and so was going to find something no matter what.
"How would you account for the fact that it this police detective claims to have had a conversation in which John Doe agreed to meet at place X to pay for sex with a 12-year-old" is less easy to construct.
lol
Perhaps could be reworded:
The cop went in believing that a pedophile were almost certainly present (because a child's parents reported them), and so was going to find something no matter what.
For all we know, the parents were abusing the child and the child wanted to tell someone they trusted. The parent(s) found out and made some shit up.
I don't know man. People do some weird shit. I once climbed up the side of an apartment building to beat my friends taking the stairs, just to surprise them. I'm sure an onlooker might think I was going to rob someone.
It's like that old bias thing:
A man takes an old lady's purse, is he a criminal?
I left out a crucial detail, the old lady handed her son the purse.
The articles I linked above state that it was a sting operation. The perpetrator thought he was paying $500 to the uncle of a 12-year-old girl (who was apparently still slightly too old for his liking) so that he could rape her, but really this was a scenario set up by the police to gather evidence, with the goal of preventing future harm to an actual child.
The guy who was actually there says they are false. Meh. I’d rather believe people than obviously corrupt/biased systems.
https://casetext.com/case/people-v-bocock
"When one looks at the evidence in this case, no reasonable person could conclude that the defendant did not send e-mails, text messages, and have the phone conversations regarding having sex with a 12-year-old girl."
Sigh. After going on and on about how the state failed to actually prove the submitted evidence is actually true (merely circumstantial), but they aren’t allowed to do anything about it until a trial actually happens. Surprisingly, it looks like the trial never happened. Seems a little suspicious, does it not?
Seems like this judgement is discussing a procedural error from the prosecution, not that he didn't try to meet a 12-year-old girl in the back of her uncle's van to rape her.
But who knows, maybe he'll return to the thread and explain what he thought he was doing when arrested in that police sting and what all those emails, texts and phone calls he exchanged with undercover investigators were about, if not that.
Where the “procedural error” was literally proving the evidence is true. If the evidence isn’t true, then it’s pretty clear his only crime might simply be being profiled and arrested. We don’t know, and probably never will. Jumping to the assumption that he’s guilty from unverified evidence seems wrong to me. On a pretty fundamental level.
The procedural error was that the prosecution neglected to have someone testify that the evidence submitted of the emails, texts and phone calls was a true representation of the actual emails, texts and phone calls originally made.
That's a mistake for the prosecution to contend with in correctly making their case before the court, but it doesn't stop everyone else from casting their own judgement.
I can't think of any other plausible explanation of why he was arrested with $500 in his hand at a specific place that had been prearranged over email, phone calls and texts, other than to commit the rape of a 12-year-old girl, for that price, that had been discussed with the undercover officers - can you?
We don’t actually know if he did any of that. There was never a trial. For all we know, they were looking for their guy and he never showed. Then this posh British guy came in to get some coffee and they started chatting him up. Him, not knowing what is going on, decides “what the hell, I’ll play along with the prank” (note, he never said, in person, he was going to have sex with her). Turns out it wasn’t a prank at all, but they thought they found their guy and bam, he goes to jail.
I’d be curious to hear the Duncan Donuts recording. I think that would be the deciding factor for me.
That sounds quite the unlikely tale. How would you explain the child pornography they found at his home, was that a prank too?
Read above about how a cop planted evidence in my car to get what he wanted. Google Civil Forfeiture if you want to see more scummy ways cops will fuck up your life for giggles.
For all we know it was anime and the cop said it was child porn because he had never seen anime in his life.
Your alternative explanations all sound very unlikely in aggregate. If the material found by the police was anime drawings of children being raped, that's also vile and disgusting, and not a great defence in the court of public opinion.
Just as unlikely as…
Appellate court: decisions look legit based on evidence; at trial, please prove evidence
Plaintive: how about we just don’t have a trial…
Defendant: ffs
Something smells fishy. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve been on the wrong side of cops’ biases too many times to think they are automatically in the right; making virtually any other possibility just as likely. For example, for all we know, the defendant is actually an alien and they simply wanted to run experiments on him for a few years. Oh, wait, he actually is an alien. lol.
Anyway, I got nothing and doxing them on here without any actual evidence of wrongdoing, but insisting that circumstantial evidence is proof without even a trial is super fucked up.
I’m not a lawyer but I’ve worked with plenty of them to prove some technical shit or another for a case, even the FBI. So I’ve seen some crazy and unlikely cases in my life. This sounds suspiciously like they couldn’t pass the bar of “without a doubt” and simply gave up.
Oh, and why is a trial important? So we get to hear his side of the story. You’ve only heard one side, and he would be wise (and well within his rights) to never share his side.
His side of the story is that the cruel landlord and daughter went to immediately kick him out of the house after finding out about some "false charges" from a decade ago. He's trying to evoke sympathy by providing very limited information as to why the landlord made that call. I see nothing wrong with providing some actual relevant context for the other side, and asking him what he has to say about that.
Would you want this guy living in your house, in close proximity to your children, after finding out these charges and the circumstances of his arrest?
Maybe he had an ex that wanted to make life hell for him. Create a new e-mail account using the guys name, use that to create a Craigslist account, do the whole bit. Come back "to pick something up", plant some child porn on his computer; or maybe the "child porn" on the computer wasn't really that childish (either just normal porn, or maybe porn alleging to be 17-year-olds or something). Arrange with the "uncle" (whom you know are the cops) to meet at a place you know he frequents regularly: maybe he just carries $500 with him as a habit; maybe he always stops at the Dunkin Donuts after visiting the payday check casher -- an ex would know that kind of thing. Or maybe come up with some other excuse to get him there with the requisite cash. Or, play then Craigslist game the other way, and arrange for him to be there with the cash -- maybe he thought he was buying a used car, or maybe he actually thought he was buying a used instrument from Craigslist, being sold by a 12-year-old girl!
There absolutely are vindictive people like that in the world; and my guess is there are a lot more vindictive people like that than complete idiots who would ask a complete stranger on Craigslist, out of the blue, to arrange sex with someone under 11. (And then come on Hacker News decades years later to protest his innocence?) "I was framed" certainly seems implausible, but slightly less implausible than the accusation.
The issue here is that qingcharles is lying.
He is a creepy pedo who tried to meetup with a 12 year old to have sex and is a registered sex offender.
"Bocock allegedly responded to a Craigslist advertisement posted by a Plainfield resident trying to get money for his car payment. But in exchange for the money, Bocock wanted a girl for sex, officials said.
The Plainfield resident went to the police and an investigator pretending to be the cash-strapped Craigslist poster continued the online conversation with Bocock, officials said. The investigator reportedly offered Bocock his 12-year-old niece for the car payment money, and a rendezvous was set up for Monday afternoon at a Dunkin' Donuts on Route 59.
After Bocock was taken into custody, police searched his North Tripp Avenue home and found "numerous" images of child pornography, Casson said."
Yes exactly this. If they were false charges as he claims, then he wouldn't be listed on the sex offender registry. His story just doesn't add up.
I don’t know. I tend to believe people are innocent unless proven guilty. “Allegedly” kinda stands out here…
Anyway, I can’t believe I’m arguing over basic human rights ingrained in the constitution. Well, I guess all rights go out the window “for the children” so I’m not surprised. Just disgusted.
How is that even possible? What kind of system allows such a nonsense to occur?
As long as you waive your right to a speedy trial and you don't post bail you can be held without trial basically forever in the United States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
rikers island, nyc
You got popped for being a creepy pedo tho.
makes sense why you hide your real name and them kicking you out is totally justified.
If you are in the United States, in most jurisdictions, a 24 our eviction would be against the law and come with significant penalties for the landlord.
10 years in jail awaiting charges certainly means you waved off a speedy trial. Yet still, I believe you are leaving out a significant detail or two.
What if they raped children or murdered people? How far does it go?
I can forgive but it also is wise to keep distance relative to the severity of the aberration.
At some point we should either give them life imprisonment or accept that if they are free to go then they paid their debt and need to be reintegrated (obviously if they did sex offences against minors then don’t put them in jobs with high contact to minors).
No death penalty if nitrogen hypoxia were the method?
I’m against death penalty because:
1. False conviction rate is unacceptably high
2. It’s financially similarly burdensome to do life imprisonment as death penalty
3. Presence of death penalty doesn’t seem to impact homicide rates
I am all for putting some people in prison and never letting them out (because of high chance of recidivism).
These are bad reasons to be against the death penalty. Even if the state were always perfectly correct, the right to life is the most basic of human rights and the state should not deprive anyone, including criminals, of human rights.
Jail already deprives people of human rights. I'm still against the death penalty though.
Is there any standard of evidence that could merit the death penalty?
Should people be able to choose it over a life sentence?
IMHO nitrogen would significantly bring that cost down
If lasting penalties are right for sex offenses against minors, why are they wrong for everything else?
I'm deliberately keeping those examples out of my statement because those are touchier. Murdered people? That depends on circumstance. Wantonly raping children, nah, but if it's a "peeing in a bush at night 1000yds from school" type conviction I don't care.
That depends on what the job is, isn’t it? If it would give them more access to children that would be cause for concern.
Same way about bank robbery. Previous bank robbery would give me a much bigger pause if we work on bank security or adjecent fields for example.
Why would that be a cause for concern?
I think they mean the likelihood of a person committing a crime for a second time is higher when they have already committed it once.
They might pee in a bush again?
As they say, it takes a thief to catch a thief. Who would be able to protect the bank better than a former bank robber?
It's weird for me, because there was a time when my only friends were murderers. To say that murderers are some of the nicest people I've ever met, on the whole, is a rather bizarre statement.
If I was locked up again and had the choice who to hang with, it would be murderers all the way.
I'm still in contact with many of them on a day-to-day basis.
It's the age old debate: Do people change?
I think that most people do not.
Teenagers get calmer when they get older, so I can accept ignoring minor misdeeds that can be attributed to not thinking, but not anything more serious.
You seem to think that people do change, and maybe some do, but I think that's a rarity. Anyway that's the crux of your message: Do people change or not?
19 years of uneventful employment later and we’re questioning, “do people change?” In his case, obviously yes. And his stuff was nonviolent, already long restituted crime. He fudged his background on a job application. The whole situation has never sat right with me.
Well, he also lied to police, substantiated with lie with false documents, and this resulted in someone ending up forcibly medicated and imprisoned for an extended time.
He knew the guy was going to trial and his comfortable life was more valuable to him than honesty or this other man's existence.
There should never be anything wrong with lying to the police... They're allowed to lie to you.
In the article's situation it was causing ongoing harm to another person so this is still pretty bad though
I'm with you on lying to the police.
But note that, according to the article, lying to the police was viewed as a minor crime. The major one was giving his bank a false name. The bank isn't even, notionally, an arm of the state.
I always found it so weird that in some legal systems defendant can't lie or interrogation is not very strict process where only final statement is signed...
Different guy...
Ah, it was unclear to me whether we'd reverted to talk about the article, but the duplication of 19 years answers that.
In any case, I guess-- it's complicated. We have this guy who was seemingly a different person for nearly 35 years, but then reverted to do something terrible (and similar to things he had done in the past) when it all threatened to come crashing down. And the other guy who was someone different for 19 years.
People do not change. In my opinion, people are driven by circumstance. Middle-class is relatively calm and peaceful because that's their circumstance. Of course, if you are part of one you'd claim otherwise in some process of self-insulation and protection.
Remove all entitlements, money and credentials from a middle-class person and throw them on the street and see how quickly that goes down.
You contradicted yourself here.
They are saying that people act (yield output) in function of their input (circumstances), but that this function itself doesn’t change: The same input will always yield the same output, for a given person.
(I’m not agreeing, just pointing out that there is no contradiction.)
Yes. If you define people as a mathematical function that works. Good point.
For 19 years he continuously committed a crime against another guy and when given the chance to have the other chap incarcerated he proceeded with it. You guys are all very kind with other people's lives, but if Google cancels one app you use it's suddenly thunder and brimstone and how you will never use Google again what a horrific thing. Give me a break. I can almost guarantee that, should I look in your profile history, you'll be holding some position about someone or some organization long after they acted in some manner you found unacceptable.
I'm all for forgiving people, but the guy was actively committing the crime against the other chap!
It's not the stolen identity that's the issue - it's the real person who actually has that identity.
If he had stolen an identity from someone dead we'd probably all just kinda shrug.
Absolutely agreed, but I'd go further and say you shouldn't have to hang onto everything you've ever done and get a few chances to reset in non-criminal situations too. I handled some previous relationships like shit in my early twenties, and upon years of reflection have formed what I'd consider a completely different sense of who I am and how I treat people; me at 23 is not me at 32, but it scares me a bit that my apparent integrity would be called into question should I have to dig into it, despite authentically having no part of me that could see life from those eyes again
I don't think these things are at odds, if I understand you correctly.
To use religious terminology - repentance makes up for the sin. In other words, the explicit reflection on your past and determination to do better is indeed a transformational thing.
The thing is, "repentance" is not a given and I would say that most people do not go through the introspection and evolution process, so there's no reason to assume that mere passage of time has transformed one into a different person than he who has transgressed.
In your case, the thing that would make me not worry about your "apparent integrity being called into question" is the fact that you yourself are calling yourself out for having done badly. That would be quite different than someone who's done the equivalent amount of aging but didn't recognize and evolve from their past.
Of course there are some things where mere recognition is not sufficient. For example where the misdeed can be correct or otherwise accounted for, they ought to be. EG if one has the opportunity to go back and undo/apologize/repay/whatever but they don't, then their repentance is itself in question (if you don't go back to fix the thing, are you really beating yourself up for having done it, etc?) At most extreme cases, it can mean confessing to a crime and throwing yourself at the mercy of the court or whatever.
Unfortunately it can be hard or impossible to differentiate between the two, but people are sorry for what they did for one of two reasons:
- They have empathy for the person they harmed and recognise that they should change their actions to avoid doing such harm again.
- After being caught, they regret how their own freedoms are now jeopardised by their past actions. So they regret their actions, but mostly (or only) because of how it affects them (now) and not how other people may have been harmed.
The problem with latter is that they are sometimes irredeemable, they may pay back their victims, but they see it kind of like losing a bet, they got caught this time so need to pay up and the lesson they internally learn is to not get caught.
I get where you're going, but I think it depends a lot to me on what somebody did. If it's all water under the bridge, fine. But if the people are still recovering from the harm, I have more questions. If they haven't apologized or made amends, same deal.
And I think it's always reasonable to keep an eye out for the extent to which patterns are still repeating. Some of us become better people over time, and some of us just get better at covering up.
Would you want to hear the crazy stories of a two decades ago child murderer too?
I didn't think so.
It's not as farfetched as you seem to believe.
I've been reading a translation of Water Margin; here's a bit from the story of Wu Song:
Actually, first, here's Wu Song's dictionary entry in the Hanyu Da Cidian:
[A character in Water Margin. Brave, fierce, strong, and violent, he once beat a man-eating tiger to death with his bare hands in Jingyang Pass. Afterward he joined the peasant uprising in Liangshan, with brutal killing [and rape?] everywhere, he is one of the heroic figures that the common people love.]
OK, now, the excerpt from Water Margin:
------
[Wu Song has been framed for theft by a conspiracy of three men, beaten, and exiled. He has just returned to the home of the highest-ranking conspirator (General Zhang), beheaded all three of them at the self-congratulatory party they were holding, and left a note claiming responsibility in blood on the wall.]
From all this killing the pavilion was swimming in blood, bodies could be seen lying everywhere in the flickering light of the candles. Wu Song said to himself: "It had to be all or nothing; kill a hundred, you can only die for it once." Sword at the ready, he went downstairs.
"What's all the hullabaloo upstairs?" the General's wife was inquiring as Wu Song rushed in. At this monstrous sight she shrieked: "Who are you?"
But Wu Song's sword was already flying. It caught her square in the forehead and she fell with a shriek right there in front of the pavilion. Wu Song held her down but when he tried to cut off her head the sword wouldn't cut. Baffled, he saw by the light of the moon that the blade was completely blunted. "So that's why I couldn't get her head off," he thought.
He slipped out of the back door to get his halberd again and threw away the blunt sword. Then he turned and went back to the tower. A lamp could be seen approaching. It turned out to be the singing girl, Yulan, the one he'd had the trouble with before. She was accompanied by two children. When the light of her lamp fell on the General's wife where she lay dead on the floor, Yulan screamed: "Merciful Heaven!"
Wu Song raised his halberd and ran her through the heart. He also killed the children, a single thrust to each. He went to the central hall, bolted the main door, and returned. He found two or three more young girls and stabbed them to death too. "Now at last," he said, "my heart is eased. Now it's time to stop."
------
This is the heroic figure that the common people love. The story is not short on villains, but Wu Song is not one of them.
Wu Song befriends a husband and wife who operate a series of inns, where they drug and butcher travelers who make the wrong impression in order to serve their meat to the other guests. They aren't villains either.
Legally, the statute of limitations addresses this very problem. You aren’t going to be dragged off to jail in your forties for some shoplifting you did in your twenties.
Socially, we probably should adopt something similar. Depending on the crime (non-violent, low cost to society, one time), we should all pretty much pretend it didn’t happen after about 5 - 10 years.
Statue of limitations is only on being charged. The conviction record is what causes problems and that sticks around for life in the US.
On the one hand, sure. When I started reading this new story, I was like, "If the guy has lived that long under a name, it's kinda his name now, right?"
But then I read how thoroughly he fucked over the guy whose name he stole in 2019, or 30 years after he started using the name. So some people may not be the same 20 years later. But some of them sure the hell are.
I dunno, I guess maybe we'd just disagree on where the line is drawn. Murder? Rape? Something of that caliber? Nah, I'm not just gonna assume or trust that the person has changed, even if it'd been 20 years or whatever.
Bank robbery? Well, I dunno. Armed robbery? Did anyone get hurt? Maybe that's not ok, no matter how much time has passed.
But yeah... drugs, whatever. Super petty crimes where there wasn't any violence or physical threats involved? Yeah, maybe no big deal if enough time has passed with the person leaving that kind of life behind.
But even then, it's hard to say. In this article, it seems like the faker didn't do anything that bad before stealing this other guy's identity. Like, the kind of stuff where, 20 years later, we'd probably just shrug and be like "yeah that guy's got some stories". But he ruined another man's life, causing a situation that led him to become committed to a mental hospital merely for claiming that someone else had stolen his identity. (Sure, the judge in the case almost certainly acted improperly, but that's not really the point.) I don't think that's something you just sweep under the rug, even in another 20 years.
Absolutes do not work and details matter. Maybe you just do not find the crimes you mentioned particularly disturbing. Now imagine that the coworker has comitted some crime that you personally are terrified of or disgusted by. Would you still just go get a beer and hang out? Would you trust the person around people you love or care about? Would you trust the person around potentially vulnerable people at your workplace?
I am glad you are trying to put skin in the game. But your examples are all non-sentimental. Let's pick a different one. If that guy used to touch children in public swimming pools (not rape) decades ago, would you let him babysit your child? Or what if that guy just used to flash himself to children?
I agree that people change. And I am willing to take the risk of working / hanging out with someone who has dealt drugs or stolen cars or even robbed banks. That's bec no one was hurt (at least intentionally) during these activities. But what if he intentionally hurt someone? Would you feel comfortable with that person roaming in the streets where their next target could be you or your family?
At some point there should be squatters rights to an identity.
What about the "true owner" of the identity, if there is one? In the article's case, there was a guy who was imprisoned for a couple of years and forcibly medicated because his identity was stolen.
ID thief pats rent and some back rent too.
Sorry, I meant, "pays" and not "pats"
If the identity is unused, sure.
But if you've been destroying someone else's life, as here, absolutely not.
The key part is you cannot change your birthday - that aspect makes it clear identity theft and not just use of a different given name (legal in many jurisdictions).
You can start going by another name. Nobody side eyes Bob for not going by Robert. What makes this different is the fraud.
It's problematic. I have a friend who is a parolee. He had trouble getting parole. It was only once he was out and parole officers kept looking at him funny and whispering about him having a fucked-up record that we looked into it and found someone else had used his identity while he was in prison and committed a dozen really heinous crimes which all got added to my friend's record somehow.
As long as they get some squatters lefts too.
I would be much more OK with what he did (at some point the stolen identity IS his identity), but not when there's a living person who also has that identity!!
Why were his benefits voided after 19 years of work? What does it have to do with identity?
How much leeway does HR have to yank earned benefits? After two decades of doing the work, seems like they are entitled.
If someone lied about getting a degree, would HR pull the 401k after a 20 year career? Faked a few certifications? Any lie is enough?
They can’t yank any vested money, whether it’s 401k contributions from the employer or accrued pension benefits. An employee of 19 years shouldn’t have lost much but missing a 20-year milestone for a pension might’ve hurt.
This is the case even if you’re convicted of a crime, let alone just fired.