[LINK] "Good Samaritan" hacker pleads guilty to breaking and entering

[Jan Whitaker]

At 11:32 AM 28/09/01 +1000, Roger wrote:
>I *do* have a problem with the fact that the discretion on whether or not 
>to prosecute lies with the prosecutor.  The crime should be defined such 
>that no crime exists unless intent ('mens rea') is proven.  Otherwise the 
>crime becomes available to a prosecutor as a weapon of repression.

Just as an example where 'intent' was a critical component. I served on a 
jury for a counterfitting charge in the US a few years ago.  US Fed court - 
Treasury dept charge - big stuff!  Anyway, the guy was supposed to have 
passed a bad $50 note that had been created on a xerox machine.  Looked 
pretty good, too.  He was the owner of a shop that took in money for some 
type of service, framing pictures I think.  Wife sent him for pet food and 
gave him the note out of the till.  Teenager at Petsmart recognised funny 
money and got the manager, who got the police, who arrested the bloke.

Outcome:  we sat through the federal prosecutor's presentation of the 
case.  Jury sort of looked at each other with expressions of - "is that 
all?"  Jury sent out. Jury called back.  Judge issued a finding of no case 
because their wasn't any evidence of intent, that the guy was probably a 
second or third party recipient of the note, case closed.  He really rapped 
the fed agents over the knuckles for not being better prepared and wasting 
his and our time!

Thank goodness for a thoughtful judiciary and separation of powers when you 
can find them!

I wonder if the kid in the hacker case pled too early.

Jan


JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm