"the only possible evidence they had was the wrong username."

Out of curiosity and definitely not defending this prosecution, but if the chain "unique Kik username -> unique gmail address -> unique ISP user -> guy living alone, happens to have Kik on his device" weren't screwed up by the investigators submitting the wrong username, would you say that's enough for a jury to convict ? I don't know about Canada but in the US at least no judge would step in and say that's not enough for a jury to convict on. Convictions happen based on he said/she said. In fact that's probably what this boiled down to. The defense isn't hiring a computer expert to dispute the chain "validated" by Kik/google/etc. unless the guy is rich. They probably accepted that as fact and just argued it wasn't him using the account. And everyone charged with this type of crime says "It must have been someone else on my computer."

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jojobas 4 hours ago | parent [-]

No, there are open wifi routers, there are WPA attacks, friends that were given wifi passwords, and a lot of other things. Convicting on IP address match should disqualify the trial judge.

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anigbrowl 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Judges generally do not evaluate the quality of evidence. Unless the defense challenges, it's assumed that the prosecutions claims are founded in fact. It doesn't matter if the prosecution alleges you did six impossible things before breakfast unless the defense disputes these allegations.

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jojobas 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A judge that has no reasonable doubt with this sort of evidence has no business being a judge.

We don't know what defense did in this trial but not picking up on the username mismatch and the assumed non-challenge of the evidence is telling as well.

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anigbrowl an hour ago | parent | next [-]

In an adversarial system (which the US and Canada and UK are), the judge is not supposed to challenge evidence unless it's glaringly, obviously adrift from reality. That's the job of the defense lawyer. In civil law systems the roles of the judge and prosecutor are combined and responsility for bad decisions is distributed differently.

	▲	jojobas 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The prosecution must still present evidence that proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. "Something something IP address" sort of evidence that the article describes doesn't seem to cut it.

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irishcoffee 9 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I am curious if you’ve ever met a judge. Every single one I’ve known was a giant, arrogant, jackass. They aren’t actually (generally) interested in being good at their job, they just like the idea.