Something like this should result in the defendant being automatically found not guilty, and the agent sent to jail for the maximum sentence the defendant was facing. This is a complete and unacceptable breach of the public trust, and of civil liberties.
> this should result in the defendant being automatically found not guilty
These knee-jerk reactions sound good in passing, and sometimes pass into law. In reality, you created a get out of jail card for the powerful. Plenty of people in law enforcement would wipe a drive if their family and debts were taken care of, even in face of prison.
> Plenty of people in law enforcement would wipe a drive if their family and debts were taken care of, even in face of prison.
This is beyond ridiculous:
(1) Someone in law enforcement that is in a position to meddle with the chain of evidence can already wipe incriminating evidence, which is already illegal. That would imply that the powerful already have a “get out of jail” card.
(2) There are a myriad of other places where corruption and bias can produce a “get out of jail” card, starting with who law enforcement chooses to investigate in the first place, and ending with who prosecutors decline to prosecute.
(3) Anyone in law enforcement is well-aware of just how horrific a place prison actually is, especially for someone previously in law-enforcement. Nobody is scrambling to wipe their debts to “take care of their family” while going to prison themselves.
I think it's a great idea not to do the first thing you think of, and instead to think of alternatives before committing to a solution. But I'm scratching my head here trying to think, what are good alternatives? Are you suggesting we send their family to jail too?
I mean honestly, what do we do here? Let them keep their job, pensions, and what ever hush money their received?
If this isn't a crime that sends you to jail, then I'm a little at a loss here.
Obviously there should be an exception to the exception that says that says the auto-exoneration doesn't happen if the accused conspired to destroy the evidence.
Better would be the inverse of the consequences when the defendant erases evidence - you just assume the destroyed evidence was whatever is worst for the prosecution and best for the defence.
>In reality, you created a get out of jail card for the powerful. Plenty of people in law enforcement would wipe a drive if their family and debts were taken care of, even in face of prison.
My knee-jerk reaction would include adding the sentence the accused was threatened with as a "bonus" to the standard sentence the rogue law enforcement officer would receive as punishment. That might add sufficient disincentive.
Good ole slippery slope. This is an insane take, tampering with evidence needs to have consequences, and unfortunately I'd rather let someone innocent go (even if that means sometimes guilty go free too). It's much worse to err on the side of let's kill / punish a few innocents.
> Cessario could possibly face 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, forfeiture of property involved in the criminal offense, and supervision upon release.
If he actually has to serve that kind of sentence, that really doesn't sound too lenient.
Those are the exact same maximum penalties for a single count of wire fraud. It's more lenient than the penalty for growing 50-99 marijuana plants (same jail time, fines go up to $1M) or selling 50-99kg of marijuana (same penalty as the cultivation). On the high end of the scale, sale or cultivation of marijuana includes life in prison.
Relative to other less serious crimes (in my opinion), this does seem fairly lenient. There aren't even mandatory minimums on it, unlike drug charges.
>This is a complete and unacceptable breach of the public trust, and of civil liberties.
I agree, and I hope the agent is sentenced harshly. However, given that this was a plea deal, I would expect him to get only a few years in jail. Although usually this is at the discretion of the judge.
But yes I think any LEOs should consider it not just a moral, ethical and legal violation of trust to do things like this, but to actively fear the consequences if they give in to the urge to cheat. In other words, a rational selfish person would NOT cheat because the EV is far too low.
Depending on what and how the FBI screwed up, it's actually possible today. It's innocent until proven guilty, and if they screwed up in obtaining a key piece of evidence, then it and anything stemming from it will be inadmissible in court. If they can't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt without that evidence, then the defendant will be found not guilty.
The idea of transferring the sentence is funny, but probably not actually a good plan. The agent should be charged with whatever, tampering with evidence or something like that, which does have a pretty heavy punishment. The defendant should get a retrial at least.
The punishment for tampering with evidence should be strict no matter what the case was about. Whether the crime they are framing somebody for is murder or petty shoplifting, the main problem is the abuse of the public trust.
You do not seem to grasp the implications of exculpatory evidence being destroyed. A retrial would be a vindication of the corrupt prosecution - er, I mean, the corrupt law enforcement who was totally not an agent of the prosecution.
People into conspiracies always comes with these kinds of slippery slope arguments. If this is wrong, then what more is wrong? It is an incorrect way of thinking. Evidence needs to be evaluated separately. Just because A is wrong does not prove anything about B.
Not the OP, understand and largely agree with your reasoning, though assuming there was a preponderance of evidence, why would someone only destroy a fraction of it knowing that doing so would be irrelevant, their efforts if discovered would be counter to their goals, and they would face significant penalties for doing so?
I have long said that attempting to frame someone should bring the same punishment the person would have faced if convicted. However, it shouldn't be automatic exoneration for the person who would have benefited. In this case it seems the attempt to destroy the data failed, the data was obtained and deemed insufficient to exonerate him. Handle it as we do in civil trials--missing evidence is presumed favorable to the other side. Now, usually that would result in an exoneration but it shouldn't be automatic--especially in cases like this where the attempt failed.
Sure--that's why the former FBI agent faces 20 years in prison. But why should that automatically lead to a finding of not guilty, ignoring the rest of the evidence?
No, that is treating the symptoms. The FBI is hardly the only law enforcement or other government organisation breaking the law or trampling people's rights. Banning one organisation isn't going to fix the underlying problem, unless you plan to ban absolutely everything, which would be terrible.
The right solution is transparency and accountability. Make sure power abuse gets punished, no matter how powerful the abuser.
If they were disbanded what would fill the void and how would we prevent the replacement from being corrupted assuming they were not corrupted already?
This user has been a member of HN since 2010 and post s a lot so isn’t a bot farm, but his website is in his profile and gives context on this type of opinion.
Without knowing if there was other evidence offered during the trial, it's unclear that the interests of justice are served by exonerating all defendants in cases where evidence is other than pristine.
No, he was not. You don't seem to fundamentally understand what "due process" means. At all. Look it up:
"Due process is a requirement that legal matters be resolved according to established rules and principles, and that individuals be treated fairly."
The "established rules and principles" clearly and obviously were not followed, here. Therefore, by definition, and there can be no debate on this, there was no "due process", here.
Misbehavior of people in the justice system should be viewed as one of the worst crimes. These people have enormous power over people’s lives and should therefore be held to the highest standards. There are so many cases of detectives falsifying evidence or bribing witnesses, prosecutors hiding evidence and often they get away with this for decades without any consequences.
The major of my city is a proven liar. She was elected nonetheless. The president of my country seems to be somehow more or less losely involved in fraud at enourmous scales. He was elected nonetheless. I feel like people stopped caring long ago. And by now we seem to have only the choice between different liars and fraudsters at the voting bill. Maybe this was always like this. But I often wonder: How did we get such beautiful democratic systems (in some european countries at least, and yes I know it's not perfect) if not by much more competent and ethically intact politicians? I try to understand, but I have a hard time.
The voters need to have easy access to more information about their electable officials. How would the average person know that your city official is a proven liar?
I think we need to remember this is just the first time this guy got caught, how many previous defendants are now imprisoned because he tipped the scales of "justice" by destroying exculpatory evidence? The problem is structural and cannot be fixed, LEOs, judges, and prosecutors all have a vested interest in working together to imprison defendants regardless of guilt. Whether through financial coercion, ejecting impartial jurors, or losing evidence they have a well greased machine that is designed to railroad the innocent just as quickly as the guilty.
From the FBI agent: "I erased the contents of the computer hard knowing that the court has ordered that the computer be submitted for a forensic examination. I did so with the intention of making the contents of the computer’s hard unavailable for forensic examination. At the time, I knew that the contents of the hard drive were relevant to an official proceeding, that is, Cause No. 5:17-CR-50010, United States v. Woods et al. I corruptly performed and had performed, the erasures with intent to impair the integrity and availability of the computer hard drive and its contents for use in that official proceeding."
In the case in question, the defendant (a state Senator) requested the laptop that contained the hard drive for examination, because it would contain evidence that they believed would demonstrate their innocence. The FBI agent was ordered to produce the laptop and did so -- but only after first purchasing and using a forensic disk-wiping service.
Heh, he had it wiped professionally and then wiped it two more times, himself. Interesting background, as the recordings came from an informer, who's recordings in question were made of his own volition... in hopes to provide more evidence to reduce his sentence in the affair(s). Wild story, with plenty of twists. The agent is def going to jail, but the missing evidence is not necessarily exculpatory. Both senators & the lobbyist were convicted on most(all?) counts.
Just read a handful of articles -- I think the approximate timeline / subtext is as follows;
The FBI started investigating a kickback scheme from a State Senator (Jon Woods) who was steering contracts to a small school in exchange for cash and payments to a nonprofit he ran from school administrators. They quickly 'flipped' one of the admins at the school (Micah Neal) who agreed to provide evidence to the FBI in exchange for a guilty plea and reduction in his own sentence.
Neal offered to start recording conversations with Woods, but the FBI told him they didn't want him to / need him to (presumably because they had enough written evidence and financial detail to make the case). Neal recorded 119 conversations anyway and gave them to the FBI.
When the DOJ indicted Woods, his attorneys would be given all investigative material and the FBI agent in question sent him 39 audio files. Woods' attorney realized there were missing files, so he had the court force the FBI to turn over the rest of them, and that's when the FBI agent went out and erased the laptop.
Reading between the lines - the FBI agent probably sent the most 'damning' recordings, left out anything that would impugn their witness, and then panicked when he realized he was caught. The DOJ didn't use the recordings at trial and hadn't asked for them, so I suspect there was no greater motive in the deletion than trying to preserve the conviction/investigative effort.
Corrupt Senator wasting taxpayer money goes to jail, bad FBI agent goes to jail, all seems fine in the end.
Yeah... without delving into specifics here, it's possible to both deeply distrust the FBI and the people they are investigating.
An often-abusive organization can be tasked with investigating deeply corrupt people, and we don't need to pick a side and declare them the good guys out of tribal loyalty.
If an FBI agent had to delete audio recordings because he was afraid it would have proved the defendant's innocence, I'm going to have to go ahead and side with the defendant here. I don't know what tribes you're referring to, but this is a case of simple inference.
The FBI was investigating a Republican for context.
The FBI has always selectively targeted politicians going back to J Edgar Hoover, and the entire organization has political corruption in its founding and DNA.
It's amazing that such an obvious statement as the above is being down-voted.
Yes, right now it's trendy to be pro-FBI since they are going after Trump, and Trump bad. However, the FBI routinely violates civil rights and like any police organization attracts bad actors and will abuse it's power to the extent it is not prevented from doing so.
The FBI is an org large enough that it fights with itself at times. It is thousands of people, some of which are going to be untrustworthy, because that's how humans work. But that's not unique to the FBI.
Now, it is a nexus of power that is prone to abuse. (Be sure to check out the lingerie display in the Hoover Building if you visit.) And I do think it needs some reforms - oversight, control and sunlight are sorely lacking. Just like the rest of US LE, they need to be far better-controlled.
The people should control their government. USSC ended that four decades ago by creating the policy of shielding government bad actors through 'qualified immunity'.
Why would you need to mention this? This is normal default way of thinking since the FBI and who it investigates are unrelated except for the the investigation./
> Something like this should result in the defendant being automatically found not guilty, and the agent sent to jail for the maximum sentence the defendant was facing. This is a complete and unacceptable breach of the public trust, and of civil liberties.
>we don't need to pick a side and declare them the good guys out of tribal loyalty.
We do if we want to have some veneer of ideological consistency to our calls to send the feds after groups X, Y and Z (values of X, Y and Z vary over time) that aren't very bad in the grand scheme of things but whom we want to be marginalized anyway. Reconciling the evil that goes on under the guise of federal law enforcement with throwing ever increasing resources at them to chase this year's boogeyman is beyond the reach of all but the most skilled mental gymnasts so people just call them the good guys because that's easier and doesn't run the risk of you having to defend a nuanced position.
Edit: I do not think the FBI (or most of federal law enforcement for that matter) should exist in their current capacity, but the above is how it appears many people's opinion of the FBI has been formed and that should make a lot of people here uncomfortable.
>We do if we want to have some veneer of ideological consistency
I would argue the opposite.
Ideology generally doesn't mean you should pick a side and stick with it all the time.
For example I can disagree with the FBI one day based on my ideology, and agree the next based on my ideology. The FBI is an institution made up of people who make various choices, not an ideology.
I get that this could go down a rabbit hole of definitions and so on but that's my approach generally, to a lot of things.
I don't like the way the FBI was used to "infiltrate" the counter-culture of the 1960s and early 1970s. But that doesn't make me write off the FBI as the bad guys.
I do like the way the FBI is used to infiltrate extreme right wing groups of the present day. But that doesn't make me think that the FBI are the good guys.
You can hold everyone accountable. You're basically saying "Side A is worse than side B so therefore side B is excused from the bad things they do" that makes no sense.
It’s funny how they are bringing these charges when the trust in FBI is an all time low and now FBI (if it wasn’t after the whole Peter Strozk incident) is seen as a political operative for ruling elites in Washington.
> how they are bringing these charges when the trust in FBI is an all time low
The FBI agent is pleading guilty. These wheels have long been turning.
The only part relevant to the present situation is the editorial discretion and social amplification putting an…ABC 7 KATV? Yes, that article on the HN front page. It’s topical, it gets clicks, it gets upvotes.
The FBI was a political dirty tricks agency from its first days. J E Hoover kept dossiers on all public officials to use coercing them. First priority was always getting coninued funding and absolute autonomy for the FBI and Hoover. But next in priority was whatever the hell Hoover wanted. He may have taken his dossiers to the grave; there is no way to know. But they certainly still keep them.
The FBI forensic lab for its whole existence went out of their way to falsify testimony on samples they were sent, implicating or exonerating according to what whoever sent them wanted.
Their "most-wanted list" was always a political PR instrument: they put on it whoever they were about to arrest, just so they would seem successful, effective, and deserving of increased funding.
Now whoever runs it inherits all their institutional power.
What's funny is how one political party thinks the FBI is acting politically right now but argued otherwise 1 President ago. Turns out people just hate it when the law comes for them.
In my view they really were acting politically one president ago. Just read the wikipedia on James Comey. It's pretty difficult to argue that he wasn't using his position for a political agenda with every action while the Director of the FBI.
When has the FBI _not_ been acting politically? At least by the time of J Edgar Hoover, it was a strong arm to enforce the political goals of the administration. Robert Mueller and James Comey continued this tradition albeit with a bit less personal gusto.
I think you meant Strzok, NOT Strozk. Did you read his book? Actually great read. Dude, like anyone else had his own opinions, unless you believe FBI agent are cyborgs and have no right to be humans, have their own personal opinions, etc. and was sharing it with his private connections. He was on a power trip but there was no power that he could actually use to corrupt. Hence, even if he said he will stop Trump for winning, as you know - he did not do so, because he way just showing off. I'm not defending him as a decent FBI agent, seems he was not, but also his position like many other people (Clinton, Soros, etc) has been blown out of proportion by Maga/Alt-right.
> bringing these charges when the trust in FBI is an all time low and now FBI
Citations please.
Weird that you would say this like a fact, it really isn't the case. It is a smaller proportion of the population that is trying to cast doubt and trying to normalize this suspicion.
"Cessario could possibly face 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, forfeiture of property involved in the criminal offense, and supervision upon release."
The real story will be how that "could" will be translated into an "is" beyond a slap on the wrist not to discourage future minions.
Abuse of State power is the only offense I would endorse the death penalty for.
There is hardly anything worse. An individual is fairly limited in how much harm they can do (unless they control a biggish corporation). A public official abusing the power of the Federal Government can blight the lives of millions.
That said, people in control of corporations casn do enormous harm, and the go-to treatment of this malfeasance in the US is to fine holders of the stock at the time a conviction loses its final appeal, with no prosecution of company officers at all unless they defrauded stockholders. That is seriously messed up.
All the executives of pint companies that poisoned millions for decades retired untouched.
Readit News
These knee-jerk reactions sound good in passing, and sometimes pass into law. In reality, you created a get out of jail card for the powerful. Plenty of people in law enforcement would wipe a drive if their family and debts were taken care of, even in face of prison.
This is beyond ridiculous:
(1) Someone in law enforcement that is in a position to meddle with the chain of evidence can already wipe incriminating evidence, which is already illegal. That would imply that the powerful already have a “get out of jail” card.
(2) There are a myriad of other places where corruption and bias can produce a “get out of jail” card, starting with who law enforcement chooses to investigate in the first place, and ending with who prosecutors decline to prosecute.
(3) Anyone in law enforcement is well-aware of just how horrific a place prison actually is, especially for someone previously in law-enforcement. Nobody is scrambling to wipe their debts to “take care of their family” while going to prison themselves.
If this isn't a crime that sends you to jail, then I'm a little at a loss here.
How do you feel about the NSA?
Deleted Comment
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/16/archives/us-forgoes-trial...
I don't think this is even a hard case, legally. The government had relevant evidence & destroyed it deliberately. Not guilty.
If he actually has to serve that kind of sentence, that really doesn't sound too lenient.
Those are the exact same maximum penalties for a single count of wire fraud. It's more lenient than the penalty for growing 50-99 marijuana plants (same jail time, fines go up to $1M) or selling 50-99kg of marijuana (same penalty as the cultivation). On the high end of the scale, sale or cultivation of marijuana includes life in prison.
Relative to other less serious crimes (in my opinion), this does seem fairly lenient. There aren't even mandatory minimums on it, unlike drug charges.
I agree, and I hope the agent is sentenced harshly. However, given that this was a plea deal, I would expect him to get only a few years in jail. Although usually this is at the discretion of the judge.
But yes I think any LEOs should consider it not just a moral, ethical and legal violation of trust to do things like this, but to actively fear the consequences if they give in to the urge to cheat. In other words, a rational selfish person would NOT cheat because the EV is far too low.
Let's say someone kills a relative of mine, the FBI dorks something up ... they should go free by default even if otherwise can be proven guilty?
I don't think that makes sense / that's not justice.
The punishment for tampering with evidence should be strict no matter what the case was about. Whether the crime they are framing somebody for is murder or petty shoplifting, the main problem is the abuse of the public trust.
You do not seem to grasp the implications of exculpatory evidence being destroyed. A retrial would be a vindication of the corrupt prosecution - er, I mean, the corrupt law enforcement who was totally not an agent of the prosecution.
I have long said that attempting to frame someone should bring the same punishment the person would have faced if convicted. However, it shouldn't be automatic exoneration for the person who would have benefited. In this case it seems the attempt to destroy the data failed, the data was obtained and deemed insufficient to exonerate him. Handle it as we do in civil trials--missing evidence is presumed favorable to the other side. Now, usually that would result in an exoneration but it shouldn't be automatic--especially in cases like this where the attempt failed.
https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/adverse-inference/
Given the evidence was exculpatory in nature, the court must assume the worst of it's impact on the State's case.
Deleted Comment
You're treating the symptoms, the leaf nodes. The FBI is a criminal organization with a long history, that should be abolished outright.
/s
The right solution is transparency and accountability. Make sure power abuse gets punished, no matter how powerful the abuser.
We must assume that people are fallible, corruption is possible, and that we therefore need a means of redress when such corruption occurs.
I see.
"Due process is a requirement that legal matters be resolved according to established rules and principles, and that individuals be treated fairly."
The "established rules and principles" clearly and obviously were not followed, here. Therefore, by definition, and there can be no debate on this, there was no "due process", here.
There was never democracy. People have an illusion of democracy. I think it was Noam Chomsky who said that in a democracy consent is manufactured.
In the case in question, the defendant (a state Senator) requested the laptop that contained the hard drive for examination, because it would contain evidence that they believed would demonstrate their innocence. The FBI agent was ordered to produce the laptop and did so -- but only after first purchasing and using a forensic disk-wiping service.
According to the article, the defendant is a former state senator, not a current or former US Senator. Otherwise good quote and summary!
Sending a TRIM request would do the job (or, generally speaking, just deleting the files). There is no reachable slack on SSD drives.
Grab some popcorn, or tune it out. YMMV.
https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-woods-260
Does anyone understand why one FBI is helping a senator?
The FBI started investigating a kickback scheme from a State Senator (Jon Woods) who was steering contracts to a small school in exchange for cash and payments to a nonprofit he ran from school administrators. They quickly 'flipped' one of the admins at the school (Micah Neal) who agreed to provide evidence to the FBI in exchange for a guilty plea and reduction in his own sentence.
Neal offered to start recording conversations with Woods, but the FBI told him they didn't want him to / need him to (presumably because they had enough written evidence and financial detail to make the case). Neal recorded 119 conversations anyway and gave them to the FBI.
When the DOJ indicted Woods, his attorneys would be given all investigative material and the FBI agent in question sent him 39 audio files. Woods' attorney realized there were missing files, so he had the court force the FBI to turn over the rest of them, and that's when the FBI agent went out and erased the laptop.
Reading between the lines - the FBI agent probably sent the most 'damning' recordings, left out anything that would impugn their witness, and then panicked when he realized he was caught. The DOJ didn't use the recordings at trial and hadn't asked for them, so I suspect there was no greater motive in the deletion than trying to preserve the conviction/investigative effort.
Corrupt Senator wasting taxpayer money goes to jail, bad FBI agent goes to jail, all seems fine in the end.
An often-abusive organization can be tasked with investigating deeply corrupt people, and we don't need to pick a side and declare them the good guys out of tribal loyalty.
The FBI has always selectively targeted politicians going back to J Edgar Hoover, and the entire organization has political corruption in its founding and DNA.
Yes, right now it's trendy to be pro-FBI since they are going after Trump, and Trump bad. However, the FBI routinely violates civil rights and like any police organization attracts bad actors and will abuse it's power to the extent it is not prevented from doing so.
Now, it is a nexus of power that is prone to abuse. (Be sure to check out the lingerie display in the Hoover Building if you visit.) And I do think it needs some reforms - oversight, control and sunlight are sorely lacking. Just like the rest of US LE, they need to be far better-controlled.
https://ij.org/issues/project-on-immunity-and-accountability...
> Something like this should result in the defendant being automatically found not guilty, and the agent sent to jail for the maximum sentence the defendant was facing. This is a complete and unacceptable breach of the public trust, and of civil liberties.
We do if we want to have some veneer of ideological consistency to our calls to send the feds after groups X, Y and Z (values of X, Y and Z vary over time) that aren't very bad in the grand scheme of things but whom we want to be marginalized anyway. Reconciling the evil that goes on under the guise of federal law enforcement with throwing ever increasing resources at them to chase this year's boogeyman is beyond the reach of all but the most skilled mental gymnasts so people just call them the good guys because that's easier and doesn't run the risk of you having to defend a nuanced position.
Edit: I do not think the FBI (or most of federal law enforcement for that matter) should exist in their current capacity, but the above is how it appears many people's opinion of the FBI has been formed and that should make a lot of people here uncomfortable.
I would argue the opposite.
Ideology generally doesn't mean you should pick a side and stick with it all the time.
For example I can disagree with the FBI one day based on my ideology, and agree the next based on my ideology. The FBI is an institution made up of people who make various choices, not an ideology.
I get that this could go down a rabbit hole of definitions and so on but that's my approach generally, to a lot of things.
I do like the way the FBI is used to infiltrate extreme right wing groups of the present day. But that doesn't make me think that the FBI are the good guys.
The FBI agent is pleading guilty. These wheels have long been turning.
The only part relevant to the present situation is the editorial discretion and social amplification putting an…ABC 7 KATV? Yes, that article on the HN front page. It’s topical, it gets clicks, it gets upvotes.
The FBI forensic lab for its whole existence went out of their way to falsify testimony on samples they were sent, implicating or exonerating according to what whoever sent them wanted.
Their "most-wanted list" was always a political PR instrument: they put on it whoever they were about to arrest, just so they would seem successful, effective, and deserving of increased funding.
Now whoever runs it inherits all their institutional power.
Citations please.
Weird that you would say this like a fact, it really isn't the case. It is a smaller proportion of the population that is trying to cast doubt and trying to normalize this suspicion.
The real story will be how that "could" will be translated into an "is" beyond a slap on the wrist not to discourage future minions.
There is hardly anything worse. An individual is fairly limited in how much harm they can do (unless they control a biggish corporation). A public official abusing the power of the Federal Government can blight the lives of millions.
That said, people in control of corporations casn do enormous harm, and the go-to treatment of this malfeasance in the US is to fine holders of the stock at the time a conviction loses its final appeal, with no prosecution of company officers at all unless they defrauded stockholders. That is seriously messed up.
All the executives of pint companies that poisoned millions for decades retired untouched.