Re: Open Letter to Lee Vartan, Assistant United States Attorney in regards to the Goatse Security iPad case.

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:32:13 CST, Andrew Auernheimer said:

> for publicly and irrevocably demonstrating that you have a
> longstanding ax to grind with me, so the logs you announced on IRC
> that you altered in corroboration with two other parties now can no
> longer be used in court.

If evidence was automatically inadmissible just because somebody had an ax to
grind with the accused, it would be a lot harder to get a conviction. (Consider
- much of the time, prosecution witnesses have an ax to grind with the accused.
 You shoot a man in front of his family, his family are going to be the prime
witnesses, and they certainly have an ax to grind with you.  That doesn't mean
their testimony is inadmissible)

Consider that *your* log of the conversation is automatically equally suspect,
as *you* obviously have a reason to alter/edit it - so if they can't use their
logs as evidence against you, then you should be equally unable to use your
logs as exculpatory evidence.

But of course, your logs and their logs are in fact admissible - and then your
lawyers and the other side's lawyers each get to argue about which logs are in
fact correct, and the jury gets to decide who to believe. Yes, he may have an
ax to grind, but is it a big enough ax to perjure himself when he says under
oath that the logs are accurate and not edited?  Sorting out this sort of "he
said, he said" is why we have juries.

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