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by btilly 4900 days ago
Innocent people do not kill themselves when confronted with the possibility of a trial. They kill themselves after they have lost at trial.

Citation needed.

It makes perfect sense to me that a depressed person who has realized what trial is going to cost, and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them, would commit suicide. An innocent person who BELIEVES that they WILL be believed probably reacts very differently. But there are a lot of people in this world who, while innocent, won't necessarily have that belief.

I would not be surprised if there was a high concentration of such among people who choose to use computers heavily.
2 comments
vidarh 4899 days ago
> and who does not believe that anyone is going to believe them

I agree with you.

In "Goodbye to Shy", Leil Lowndes cites research that shows that even someone who is just shy will tend to interpret other peoples opinions of them and of interactions with them far more negatively than less shy people.

It takes very, very little to turn what would be an incredibly stressful situation to most people - innocent or not - and turn it into something substantially worse depending just on relatively benign personality traits.

Much less mental illnesses like depression that can be extremely severe.

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alaskamiller 4900 days ago
Are you a clinical psychologist?

Do you have citations for your perfect sense?

Can you quantify your lack of surprise?

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jlgreco 4899 days ago
Is rprasad a clinical psychologist?.

If he is pulling things out of his ass without citations, it seems reasonable that he receive responses that do the same.

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btilly 4899 days ago
More to the point, rprasad is making sweeping statements of fact, along the lines of, "Anyone who commits suicide before trial must be guilty." I'm making what are clearly statements of personal opinion, along the lines of, "Here is a scenario where I can imagine the stress of a legal case tipping a depressed person over the cliff into suicide."

Strong claims require strong evidence. I'm making far, far weaker claims. The burden of proof should squarely be on rprasad.

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