This is incorrect. You can’t be held in contempt for failing to comply with an order you can’t comply with, for example due to a loss of memory. In this case the court did not believe that the defendant had forgotten the key.
Whether you actually have lost your memory is a factual question to be determined by a trier of fact. Generally, most triers of fact rule against the forgettor if forgetting benefits them.
OTOH, if a witness forgets, they would not be held in court, because there's no benefit to them forgetting, and so their loss of memory is believable.
Just to clarify, and your comment framed the apparent misunderstanding in the thread perfectly:
This ruling only says that the confinement period for contempt of court, where the court has order an individual to de-encrypt some data, is too long if it is more than 18 continuous months. This does not mean that after serving that sentence and upon subsequent release, that further refusal after another court order and hearing can not result in another sentence for contempt.
The whole point of a justice system is that Occam and his Razor are a terrible way of determining guilt.
Yeah, I'd bet that most people claiming to have forgotten a key or password are lying. But so what? How do you differentiate those who're concealing vs. those that legitimately don't know the string of characters? If they float, they're a witch, if they sink, then I guess they're not? (That's what 18 months for contempt is akin to)
You differentiate them using circumstantial evidence. Was the encrypted disk found under a pile of dust in the attic? Then to forget the password is quite believable. Is there independent, convincing evidence that you regularly and recently used the password? Then you’re probably lying. Or maybe you’re just really unlucky. Wrongful convictions do happen.
Encrypting a device to securely wipe it is not unheard of. Similar to running dd over it, but more noise to hopefully remove any lingering magnetic patterns. In such a case there's no need to retain the key.
But it could also be that you legitimately accounted for such threat of the government trying to force you to decrypt your disks and made keys volatile and unrecoverable.
Guilt or innocence is a question of fact, in the US court system. It is a determination that is left to the ‘trier of facts’ that can be a judge or a jury depending on defendant choice and statutory law for each particular jurisdiction. There are many defendants who choose to have a ‘trial by judge’ and waive a jury. It happens often and it happens for many reasons, and those facts make your assertion about a ‘clown court’ wrong.
I do understand the meaning and most likely intent of your post, but the language used is less effective than it could be.
I can say for certain that some people waive a jury when the judge is known to more often than not find defendants not guilty of Distributing Controlled Substances and instead is likely to only convict on simple possession. I can say for certain that some people opt for a trial by judge when they know that said judge often finds prosecutor arguments based on co-conspirator testimony or testimony of snitches are not reliable. Like I said, there are many reasons a defendant may opt away from having a jury trial. Also, I don’t see how your disdain for lawyers is relevant to the concept of a judge vs jury trial.
OTOH, if you were to argue that it's not your device, or that you weren't the person that encrypted it, that's a very different situation.