
I freed an innocent man from prison. Hacker News failed him. - ClintEhrlich
About 9 months ago, I asked Hacker News to help me free an innocent man serving a life sentence for murder. I shared my letter to the DA&#x27;s office and asked for feedback.<p>People responded to complain that my headline broke the rules. But nobody took the time to read my letter.<p>Good news: I won anyway. The DA&#x27;s office just announced that they got the wrong guy. Tomorrow, after 11 years in prison, Ray Jennings will walk out of court a free man.<p>Original thread: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10323025<p>Today&#x27;s story: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;lanow&#x2F;la-me-ln-conviction-doubt-20160622-snap-story.html
======
dang
It's great and important when an innocent person is freed from prison. Are you
the attorney described in the LA Times article? If so, that's amazing and I'm
sure everyone here will warmly applaud what you did.

The HN aspect is strangely beside the point, but maybe I'll address it, since
it might help in future situations. Condemning the community seems a bit
unfair. One need only look at the top comment in the earlier thread to see
that 'nobody took the time to read my letter' is false. The problem was that
the post was flagged by other users.

Rallying readers urgently to a cause is a hit-or-miss endeavor on HN, and the
way you brought it up likely made it hard to distinguish from the run-of-the-
mill politicized stories that appear every day and get flagged every day. On
HN, an urgent tone turns out not to be a great way to represent an urgent
case—even a genuinely urgent case—because countless stories take an urgent
tone and they nearly always turn out to be crying wolf, overselling, or
misleading. Readers have built up antibodies to that, and many come to HN to
escape it.

Had you asked us for advice (which people are welcome to do by emailing
hn@ycombinator.com), we might have suggested that you post an Ask HN and
explain that in addition to being an HN user, you're an attorney who has
discovered a miscarriage of justice, and would the community critique a letter
before you send it. That would have been different in two important ways: you
would have engaged readers' intellectual interest, and you would have
established bona fides as a community member and an attorney. By contrast,
trying to stir up interest Reddit-style tends to backfire on HN. And comments
like "What we're dealing with is essentially the classic deontology versus
util debate" probably took the thread in a direction that diminished its
credibility.

But all of that is nothing compared to correcting a profound injustice, and if
you did that, deep respect is due!

~~~
soham
I haven't read enough about the case, but I have to say, this comment is so
well written. Excellent expression. Thank you.

------
gus_massa
Clicky:

> Original thread:
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10323025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10323025)

> Today's story: [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-conviction-
> doubt...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-conviction-
> doubt-20160622-snap-story.html)

------
mynameislegion
Can we get a mirror of the letter?

~~~
ClintEhrlich
Sure, here is the original letter:
[http://docdro.id/vMRsSB9](http://docdro.id/vMRsSB9)

~~~
mynameislegion
Read the whole thing. Great work!

------
aaron695
> How Hacker News saved an innocent man from life in prison

The original thread title.

So they were right to flag you, you lied as you now admit?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Original title: "How Hacker News could help save an innocent man from life in
prison"

> Today, I sent the District Attorney this comprehensive refutation of the
> State's case: [http://docdro.id/Qr6auC7](http://docdro.id/Qr6auC7)

> I'm posting it on Hacker News because I want to crowdsource ideas for how to
> make the arguments even more persuasive. Which parts did you find
> convincing? Can you think of any arguments I should add?

> Please do not post the link elsewhere, because right now a huge outcry on
> social media would be counterproductive. The better way to express your
> support is to actually send a message to Ray in his cell using
> Letterquick.com.

I can't even comprehend how you feel the original thread was a lie.

~~~
aaron695
As I said that was not the title.

it was -

"How Hacker News saved an innocent man from life in prison"

Please read the original thread.

And now OP's telling us all how HN didn't save him... he did. HN was correct
to flag. QED

~~~
toomuchtodo
The author makes an attempt with a persuasive title and that makes them a
liar? This is someone's life!

This thread title should be, "I freed an innocent man from prison despite
reaching out to Hacker News for help."

Please leave the social causes that could use intelligent contributors with
technical backgrounds unflagged and head back to the "microservice framework
of the week-which compiler is faster-that one growth hacking trick you need to
know" threads. There's enough HN for all of us.

------
toomuchtodo
Thank you.

