> Still, Klayme was arrested and hit with three charges:
> Luring a person under 14 years of age by means of telecommunication
> Providing sexually explicit material to a child
> Possession of child pornography
> The case went to trial, where Klayme was found guilty. He then went to prison for 18 months.
What in the world happened in this case?
How can someone be convicted of these charges without any evidence?
Unless the article left something out, the only possible evidence they had was the wrong username. They couldn't even find evidence that this person used Kik at the time of the crime.
What defense did his lawyer even try? I'm so confused.
And yeah, the trial lawyer failed to make the case, but if the defendant couldn't raise money for a defense, they he likely didn't have any experts to refute the prosecution's evidence.
A friend of mine was facing a mountain of criminal charges. Photo evidence proved the cops lied. We needed an expert testimony explaining the camera angle and why the photo explained how the cops lied.
I think we called every service qualified for providing such a testimony in Ontario, and a good portion of them across all of Canada. Some were even happy to work with us, until they found out we were testifying against the police. We ended up going international but without luck, and ended up with no expert testimony
What evidence? They didn't have any other than a user name. An arm chair lawyer who watched too many shows could have created reasonable doubt.
> Prosecution: Mister Klayme, the criminal messages were sent from a Kik username called "fus ro dah". What's your Kik username?
> Klayme: It's "fus ro dah".
> Prosecution: It logically follows that Mister Klayme was the sender, and is therefore guilty of the offense.
But what they didn't have is any independent evidence that Klayme had sent the messages or even that he had access to the account that sent them. If they had looked at the IP address from which the messages were sent, they would have seen that it wasn't his and was in a distant geographic location.
Then you'd ask to change lawyer. If they can apply a standard practice of care and do basic checks like matching a username and time of use because they don't "believe" you when you say these are not you messages, they are not doing their job as a lawyer.
I'd go as far as saying such basic checks not being done amount to negligence/malpractice, they might have a civil case against that lawyer.
We know he's innocent, and he knows he's innocent, but how does he prove it?
Also a competent lawyer would have done a scrupulous audit of the chain of reasoning that led to his client, which would have revealed the username mixup.
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."
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.
"Something something IP address" sort of evidence that the article describes doesn't seem to cut it.
Now this isn't universal; I've seen judges that encourage the jury to ask questions in open court (by submitting as notes to the judge who reads them out), for example. But that's very unusual. Judges who make a habit of questioning submitted evidence are likely to have their rulings challenged far more often and be accused of bias, even if they are superb jurists. And high status in the legal world goes to appellate judges whose rulings set legal precedent. Trial judges do get cool points for calling out bad lawyering and writing spicy opinions but this can also be a career anchor.
We are encouraged by civics classes and media to believe in courts as truth-finding institutions, but the reality is that most of the time they are engaged in argument-scoring. Even to the extent that they do pursue truth via the appellate process, it doesn't happen in a timely fashion. There's saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine, which goes back to the Roman empire: so you're looking at an institution that is historically so confident in its process that it has become divorced from any sense of urgency in its application.
To my mind this is a by-product of legal education, where lawyers are tasked with identifying precedential or logical flaws in an opponent's argument rather than considering the entire set of circumstances. Answering 'First, I would examine all the evidence to make sure it was correct that the police did not make mistakes...' will not earn you any points on a typical law school exam; it's regarded as similar to disputing the givens on a logic or philosophy problem. I don't know about Canadian law specifically, but in US law appeals revolve solely around legal issues and the facts adduced at trial are assumed to be correct by default; you can't appeal on the basis that the facts were wrong or that the evidence was lacking, but must go on the basis that the wrong legal conclusion was drawn from the evidence in question or that your attorney failed to represent you properly (which requires you to explain why you didn't fire them at an earlier stage).
If I ever found myself wrongly accused I would never, ever go for a jury trial but ask for a bench trial instead, where the judge is the sole decider. Unlike a jury, a judge has to write out the reasoning for the decision. (It's sad that even here, the judge failed to notice the discrepancy in the evidence.) And if a defense attorney proposed to go on some other basis than the correctness of the facts I would seek to replace them immediately, even if this meant a longer period of pretrial detention. Most people go along with bad defense strategies because the carceral process is so demoralizing that they want to escape it as quickly as possible, even at the price of pleading guilty or letting the defense counsel field the wrong sort of argument. Even when someone is certain of their innocence like this defendant, starting a fight with one's own lawyer (who might be their only friend in the world if the accusation is lurid or grave enough) is often too scary for a defendant to imagine.
I'm curious (but not optimistic) as to whether anyone in the police, prosecution, or judiciary will face any consequences for their carelessness in this case beyond slower promotion. It's also unclear how the state intends to make the unfortunate defendant whole beyond declaring him the the victim of a procedural error. Compensation in such cases is usually calculated around loss of expected earnings; since it's hard to put a price on the loss of liberty, dignity, safety, or sanity those deficits are usually accorded some fixed nominal value, which tends to be on the low side. For example, the Federal government in the US pays $50,000 per year of imprisonment and $100,000 per year on death row; states have their own formulas and I assume things are approximately similar in Canada. Personally, I don't think $75,000 is adequate compensation for 1.5 years in prison on a child sex crime charge, which notoriously puts a convict at a much higher risk of violence from other prisoners than crimes involving property or ordinary violence.
The evidence would have been the sworn testimony of the cyber cop who screwed it up.
As the defendant, I'd have been terrified that all this seems to be me yet isn't.
The conviction rate Canada wide is only like 50% because so many absurd cases are brought to trial.
It did. The evidence against him were the messages sent to the girl and the unusual username. It's not like it was John_Smith. It was fairly unique.
They couldn't even find evidence that this person used Kik at the time of the crime.
The lack of digital evidence is not proof of innocence. It's not proof of anything either way.
the wrong username
It's very likely the extra underscore was simply glossed over, the way a double space is glossed over. Lawyers aren't generally known for their grasp of computer technology. The lawyer probably saw this a hundred times, thought it was a typo on the subpoena, and didn't put two-and-two together to realize that it was material. After all, the employee at the website could have made the same error but in reverse; assuming that the double underscore was a typo. It's not on the judge, as the judge doesn't go through every piece of evidence checking all the typos; they take the evidence at face value and evaluate its probative value.
It is the name of the headline magic ability in Skyrim, which is probably among the top ten most popular videogames of the last 25 years.
It makes no sense as presented.
The first thing the records should have shown was the full messaging history which would not have contained any of the incriminating messages.
But even if the messages no longer existed, there was no actual evidence. Truly, what on earth did the defense argue? How on earth was the jury convinced he was guilty?
Everything important about this story is missing from the article.
Edit: from another article, it seems like the conviction was made by a trial judge, and didn't even involve a jury: https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/halifax/appeal-court-qu...
A single judge just decided that "his guilt was the only reasonable conclusion available". Scary. I like a lot of things about Canada, but I'm somewhat horrified at the idea that you can be sent to prison without a jury trial.
I think the point is that the message history would show incriminating messages.
He'd have been saying "this isn't me", but somehow no one noticed it was the wrong username.
If the police logged into his Kik account from his device, they would have seen the lack of connection to the case. If they simply trusted the Kik account contents from the subpoena response, then it was up to the defendant/experts to identify the issue and rebut the evidence.
He might be able to negotiate an ex gratia payment, but this will be entirely at the whim of a politician, who will be looking to avoid being criticised for giving away government money
Apparently the appeal leading to the acquittal just happened last week.
> Google records showed that this email address was used to access Google services from an IP address in Canada, so the Dane County investigators turned the case over to Halifax Regional Police. Halifax police took the IP address they had been given to local Internet provider Bell Aliant. Bell connected the IP address to the physical address of their subscriber, Brandon Klayme.
This is startling to me as it shows how easy to pinpoint exact location based on email alone.
I think everyone is rightly questioning why the defendant's lawyers failed to tear apart the prosecution's case. This generally requires that the defendant have money, the defendant hire a competent criminal defense attorney, and the attorney hires a team of experts to rigorously challenge all of the evidence.
Here is some additional Canadian news coverage: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/how-a-single-unde...
0: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue
(available in Best of Creative Computing Vol. 2 at https://dn790007.ca.archive.org/0/items/bestofcreativeco00ah... , p.133)
There’s a lot missing in this sentence. What evidence ended up convicting him?
In practice, "the system" is a lot of humans. The police in rural Canada aren't used to challenging the word of Wisconsin police. Police and prosecutors need to have an incredible discipline to hear "we have a suspect in your community who preyed on a pre-pubescent girl in our neighborhood" and remain neutral and dispassionate during the investigation.
The stupid part is that the prosecution is supposed to be competent and ethical (but one of those failed). Then the defense attorney is supposed to be competent and ethical (but one of those failed). Presumably the jury got access to all of the facts of the case and simply ignored the lack of evidence tying the defendant to the offending Kik account. A chain of 3 errors shouldn't happen if everybody is diligent, but in practice "won't somebody think of the children?!?" Turns off cognitive skepticism and encourages moral panic.
This is yet another example of human confirmation bias leading to terrible outcomes for other humans. Our judgment is not so virtuous.
Now the question is whether being fallible is a feature. It seems like society is interested in keeping humans in the loop FOR the possibility of mistakes; makes it feel more authentic. Meanwhile, innocent people suffer.
Honestly, this should be a gigantic scandal. The moment where you'd reevaluate how your entire justice system operates.
Catching typos like that would be load bearing for someone armed only with a public defender.
This is most likely super common for criminal trials outside of highly professionalized police and prosecutors.
Theres no one technical in a court room.
The lawyers aren't supposed to be technical, but they should know their limitations and hire technical experts. But that also assumes the defendant can afford the defense, which is insanely expensive.
Yep,
So they have a cop stand up in court.
"We read X messages" (Here they are look how exceptionally heinous they are)
"We then asked the service for the IP."
"We then asked the ISP to deanonymise it. "
"Heres the guy we found at that IP"
He signs a stat dec that using his brilliant super techno crime brain he has correctly attributed the messages to this human.
It sounds like the defense from there was: But your honor, there's no history of these messages etc etc.
Judge is not technically capable of reviewing the evidence. Defense probably not technically capable of reviewing the evidence either. Prosecution probably not capable either. They are all just playing out parts really.
After probably having dealt with hundreds of these, on the balance of probability like most courts do they just backed in the statement by the cop.
The end unless you can find some way to challenge the technical evidence. Which he did after some time.
I want to see the transcripts.
sources: https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/halifax/appeal-court-qu... and https://nsbs.org/general-notices/council-approves-resignatio...
In the US public defenders don't have time to try cases. They are basically plea bargain assistants.
I found the verdict here: https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nspc/doc/2024/2024nspc4/2024nsp... but no transcript is given. it has to be requested, it seems.
The problem is that public defenders generally are starter defense attorneys, they're in the job to get experience so they can eventually quit and take a cushy private role. And secondly, they have very little time to allocate to each case; if the defendant is stuck in jail, then they have even less time to visit the defendant and prepare any kind of useful defense or trial strategy.
A public defender's primary strategy for their client is to, sadly, negotiate the best possible plea deal in the shortest amount of time to get the case off the docket.
(This might actually be in the best interests of the defendant; most defendants are guilty of something in the charging document, even if not everything they've been likely over-charged with; the justice system isn't quite so broken that it scoops up a huge number of factually innocent persons)
oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake. Rather than ban the use of paper, how about technical people ban fonts (designed by clueless font designers) that blend multiple underscores together?
A technical person did make the mistake, likely a police cyber forensics type.
But there's no one technical in the court room capable of reviewing their work and identifying the fault.
And they aren't in the court room to assist with technical analysis. Why we need to keep revisiting this confuses me.
>it's certainly nobody else's fault.
Not sure I would agree, but even if I did how is this a relevant reply? What's important to the defense is identifying the point at which the technical evidence is faulty. Blame and penalty for the screw up is irrelevant to the goal of getting the innocent party out of prison.
he should probably try to seek damages from the state for his wrongful conviction (and get his lawyer disbarred for grossly incompetent counsel!)
Klayme’s trial counsel was Peter Planetta, who no longer practises law.
see https://nsbs.org/general-notices/council-approves-resignatio...
[edit] Since his old lawyer wasn't practicing anymore, Klayme got a new lawyer who discovered the missing underscore.
Everyone needs to be investigated for this, this is absolutely unbelievable and sickening!
Also, the legal system is made up of humans who are ALL fallible and subject to cognitive biases. Canadian police received the case from Wisconsin police, so there was likely too much trust and not enough verification. Same with the prosecution bringing a weaker case with very high confidence.
Police generally have to send faxes to companies for subpoenas, except for the few mega techs who have digital portals built specifically for police subpoenas. Source: I worked for a company who received subpoenas via fax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kik_(app)
In 2016, CBS News called it "a predator's paradise", and Wikipedia notes that it lacks E2EE while permitting sign-ups without providing any valid contact information.
When the article says "he was found guilty" what does that even mean? "found" implies there was evidence. Throughout the article, it clearly says there was no evidence from all searches. What did they find? Not a pixelated picture, not an ip address, not even an AI auto classifying him as prime suspect.
What did the detective on the case have to say?
> Detective: "Yep, that's the user name"
> Partner: "What about the email, does it match?"
> Detective: "Email? what's that? Is that like a fax machine?"
IANAL but to be "found guilty" means you are determined to be, in the eyes of the law, guilty. Actual guilt is irrelevant. As for evidence, there's the "matching" username (which, we all now know, didn't really match).
> B: "Yep, the phone book says Johnathan BaskinRobbins lives at 123 Main Street, Shelbyville."
> A: "Hey Shelbyville Police, we have a bunch of evidence that someone called Jonathan BaskinsRobbins at 123 Main Street did a bunch of crimes with an axe - can you please check it out?"
> C: "Yep, we found that axe at the house of Johnathan BaskinRobbins at 123 Main Street."
> D: "Here's the evidence from A that Jonathan BaskinsRobbins did a bunch of crimes with an axe. And here's the evidence from C that Johnathan BaskinRobbins at 123 Main Street had the same kind of axe. Please convict him."
> E: "That's a whole lot of evidence. Johnathan BaskinRobbins is probably guilty."
.... 18 months later ....
> J: "Hey guys, my name is spelled Johnathan BaskinRobbins, not Jonathan BaskinsRobbins..."
A, B, C, D, and E: "Oops, sorry..."
Did he sue after? Was there any accountability?.
Let the process play out. "News" is called that because it is new and things are still happening.
Got to separate the message from the messenger