[aklug] Veryvery Off-Topic: Terry Childs jury reached verdict

This is the case of the SF netadmin that refused to give valid 'keys to the kingdom'
passwords to a room full of random people, including some on speakerphone and police
waiting outside.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/23283217/detail.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/28/BA4V1D5Q22.DTL&type=printable

Besides the usual slashdot commentary dreck, there's also some discussion and Q&A by
someone who alleges he was on the jury:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/27/2245223/Terry-Childs-Found-Guilty?art_pos=17&art_pos=17

One of the more disturbing comments is out of the sfgate link:

"The jury deliberated for several days before a lone holdout against conviction was
removed from the panel, for reasons that were not disclosed. After an alternate was put
in that juror's place, the panel started over and reached a decision in a matter of hours."

Anyway,

I'm not sure what I think about this, except that it was just a huge tragedy of bonehead
errors by all involved, including Mr. Childs. But the greater errors were by everyone
else, of which only Mr. Childs is and will be punished.

A couple of points that need clarifying

1. Apparently Mr. Childs was still employed by the City at the time of these events.
Lots of writeups had these events happening after his dismissal.

2. Mr. Childs first lied and gave 'erroneous' passwords, instead of just refusing
outright as has otherwise been reported.

3. The CSF administration did not follow their own procedures from start to finish, and
indeed the on-sites showed they didn't have a clue (or didn't care) what those were.

My own take: Mr. Childs deliberately turned it into a pissing contest and so caused a
lot of his own grief. Indeed, there is some evidence that Mr. Childs followed written
policy, but with some malice aforethought. But if the CSF management had had an effin
brain between them, this would have just been another bad day at work, and Mr. Childs
would be working somewhere else. Me, as soon as I saw the police and HR, I'd have
insisted on having my attorney draft up a release. If that was not doable...well, I'd
have cobbled one up right there, had everyone there sign and date it, and hoped for the
best then gone straight for the attorney. But hopefully I'd be smart enough and aware
enough of the political situations not to find myself in that position in the first place.

Anyway, I'd be interested in the take on some of you folks with 'keys to the kingdom'
access and responsibilities. Feel free to reply off list.

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Received on Thu Apr 29 13:19:14 2010