Help Kiera with her legal bills

https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-keira-with-her-legal-bills-she-was-expelled-and-charged-with-felony-after-a-harmless-science-mistake/description

by ajaymehta • 13 years ago

241 108 13 years ago

crowdtilt.com

TallGuyShort• 13 years ago

If the way this incident is described is accurate I definitely would like to support Kiera, but it's all been very one-sided so far. I'm yet to see anyone detail what the chemicals were or what the setting was in which this occurred. Those are important details to understand in order to tell if this really was something reckless or if it was just a proper science experiment. Anyone know of such sources?

DannyBee• 13 years ago

I can't find the charging/etc documents that would give you the other side (or at least, some small part of it), but this may be because she's a juvenile (none of the sources mention if they are trying to charge her as an adult).

dserodio2• 13 years ago

This post says she'll be charged as an adult: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-case-a...

uvdiv• 13 years ago

Here's the police report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/138927259/Wilmot-Arrest

The chemicals were aluminum foil and hydrochloric acid. The setting was near an outdoors gazebo on school grounds. The context was, in her first version, a "science fair project"; in her second version, she was following instructions given by a friend, not aware it would explode.

rdl• 13 years ago

Wow, the government's case, even if you accept it as true, doesn't seem to be a serious crime. She either was conducting a "science experiment", or screwing around with a small amount of chemicals to make a small bomb without threatening anyone, neither of which should be felonies.

A one-day suspension for doing this unsafely seems like about the limit of what's reasonable, and even that is questionable. The focus should be on making sure she knows about the accidental injury possible from this, not punishing her particularly, and encouraging her to continue with her interest in chemistry.

(The number of people I know who went to top-tier schools later who did crazy things much more dangerous than this, such as making fougasse, 5-10 pound black powder pipe bombs, ANFO, etc., is pretty high. They were all white or asian, though, which seems to be what this is about, as well as doing it off school property.)

I was initially a bit more suspicious of the story, assuming she was doing something actually dangerous and then explained it as "a science experiment" when caught, which clearly doesn't seem to be the case.

marshray5• 13 years ago

It said toilet bowl cleaner http://www.theworkscleans.com/toiletcleaner.html and aluminum foil.

Here's the MSDS data sheet for "The Works" http://www.chemtura.com/msd/external/e/result/report.jsp?P_L...

IIRC, that combination should release H2 and a little heat, but not enough heat to ignite anything. So the bottle basically went "fizz" and "pop".

Some of those plastic bottles can make a loud pop.

gailees• 13 years ago

Finally someone is actually doing something about this!

rjvir• 13 years ago

Regardless of her outcome with her current school, people in the future will respect her curiosity. This experience could shape into an awesome college application essay.

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

Regardless of her outcome with her current school, people in the future will respect her curiosity. This experience could shape into an awesome college application essay.

Not sure if that's the case if she is branded a felon /criminal. They put those applications on a different pile for "other student's safety concerns" and all. Once she is labeled, very few might care that she got a raw deal.

sukuriant• 13 years ago

And a felony record is, in many cases, an instant stop for many employers, even if the felony is completely unrelated to their future job

mapt• 13 years ago

And, apparently, for many colleges.

marshray5• 13 years ago

I thought experimenting with mixing household chemicals was just ordinary. When we were kids we were encouraged to be interested in chemistry. Back then we had these things called "chemistry sets" for kids that contained actual chemicals.

Looking at the modern ones http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2C... it doesn't look like chemistry sets come with much more than stuff to make pH measurements (if you supply the vinegar).

ramchip• 13 years ago

It would make it very difficult to study (or work) overseas, at least.

guelo• 13 years ago

Who is Angelle Stromeyer and why should I trust that the money will go to Kiera Wilmot?

ajaymehta• 13 years ago

Crowdtilt's official twitter account has posted that the campaign is verified [1], and we'll handle disbursements of the funds directly to Kiera's family (I'm a representative). Angelle is a Crowdtilt user who was touched by Kiera's story, and wanted to do something about it!

[1] https://twitter.com/Crowdtilt/status/330475205183012864

psutor2• 13 years ago

Hi Ajay - I just sent you an email.

vl• 13 years ago

Why there is no anonymous donations with guest account?

I want to contribute to the cause, but don't care about letting "the campaign admin and others know who is making this contribution".

new299• 13 years ago

Contributed, but I too would have like to have seen an anonymous contribution option, also I'd rather not have to use my creditcard directly, either Paypal or (ideally) Bitcoin.

greghinch2• 13 years ago

To all the people who are towing the "this was inappropriate/unsafe behavior and she deserves her punishment" line, fine, but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting. Expulsion and 2 felony counts is ridiculous. Ruining a young girls life because of a mistake in which no one was hurt, whether she should have known or not, is not the answer.

InclinedPlane3• 13 years ago

To put this in perspective, she's charged with possessing and discharging a weapon on school property. That is a class 3 felony in Florida, if she is tried as an adult then she could receive up to 5 years in prison. Compare that to the Steubenville rapists who received sentences of one to two years. And here nobody was harmed nor was there even a high likelihood of anyone being harmed. It's just ridiculous.

michaelhoffman4• 13 years ago

I also think that the charges here are too severe, and the Steubenville rape sentences were too light. But they are not comparable. The rapists could have received far more than two years and Kiera Wilmot will probably receive less than five.

mattmaroon• 13 years ago

It's not fair to compare to the rapists because they were severely under-penalized. You can't say person x deserves a lesser sentence than person y, because person y's crime is more heinous. Person y may have gotten off easier than they deserved.

But yeah, 5 years for a toilet cleaner bomb is nuts. You can say that.

saosebastiao• 13 years ago

In middle school, I brought firecrackers to school and set them off deliberately in some other kids locker. There was no scientific motive or youthful curiosity. It was pure mischeif.

My punishment? I was suspended for a half day. And get this: I learned my lesson.

firefoxman1• 13 years ago

The school's reaction is truly ridiculous. I remember telling my grandfather about the explosives my friends and I would make when I was ~13/14. He responded with "You ever see what happens when you mix sodium and water? There's that, then there's magnesium...haha my science teacher wasn't too happy about that explosion." (It's hard to convey his jolly "ah good times" tone with just text)

Sure, I wasn't around but it sure seems like people were way less of a tightass back then. I got threatened with a lawsuit because I remotely controlled a teacher's computer. Just a prank!

My friend and I wanted to test out Final Cut Pro on his new Mac, so we made a little action short which included kicking a stuffed model of myself (half a day's work and a LOT of duct tape) off the school roof. Again, 15-year-olds threatened with a lawsuit for trespassing (I was under the impression my parents paid their state taxes?) A constructive activity is punished while drug deals go down in the guys' bathroom unnoticed.

lobotryas2• 13 years ago

What if someone was hurt by this incident? How would this change your outlook on the situation?

dserodio2• 13 years ago

Yes.

greghinch2• 13 years ago

"What if" is a pretty silly game to play, as the possibilities are infinite. That being said, the punishment would be more severe. We even have a crime called "manslaughter" for accidental deaths.

But no one was hurt. And she's being treated like a potential terrorist.

InclinedPlane3• 13 years ago

You're being ridiculous. What if she brought a nuclear bomb to school? What then?

As far as this specific case. Even if she had held the "bomb" next to another student's face the likelihood of any significant injury would be low. People have held dry ice bombs and draino bombs in their hands as they have gone off with the only consequence being momentary pain and perhaps some bruising. People get hurt worse playing school sports.

And in this case nobody was hurt, not even a little.

HCIdivision172• 13 years ago

Then you respond as though someone was hurt. But since no one was, don't. Letting the law react to things that haven't happened as though they did creeping terror. Not to say no lesson is learned, but the damage is clearly reversible, since _none happened_.

You don't need to ruin someone's life to learn them some respect for safety.

alexqgb• 13 years ago

Um, if the situation where different, then intelligent people would respond differently. This has do do with the definitions of "different" and "intelligent".

DanBC5• 13 years ago

> but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting.

Yes. Asking her to write an essay about the chemistry of what she did, and another one about why people respond so poorly to this kind of experimentation, would have both "punished" her, and taught her valuable lessons, and not risked destroying her life.

btilly2• 13 years ago

I thought of this with the Aaron Schwartz case. This makes me think of it again.

I'd love it if there was a service named something like Karma. When something like this happens, I could register a name, a reason, and a frequency. With no more than that frequency I'll be sent information on stories involving that name, with my reason attached.

The idea is that in a case like this I could search, find that the prosecutor in the case is "Tammy Glotfelty", and until I lost interest in the case would get updated on what she's doing. That way if she ever, for instance, ran for election I could be reminded, and know that it is time to donate to her opponent in said race.

gmurphy• 13 years ago

You could use Google Alerts (or equivalent), which gets you the name and frequency, then embed the reason in the search string in a way that won't match anything.

e.g: Tammy Glotfelty -"reason: keira science experiment"

btilly2• 13 years ago

This is nice, but Google Alerts is near the top of Gwern's list of "likely to be killed Google products." That gives me pause about relying on it.

JoeKM• 13 years ago

The negative comments here are a disheartening reminder of the Aaron Swartz defense fund thread before Aaron's death: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484

The negativity was unwarranted against Aaron. It is unwarranted against Kiera. Many of those posters apologized after Aaron's suicide, confessing ignorance of his case. Aaron's life was cast into perpetual depression from the extraordinary charges mercilessly sought after by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. Then Aaron killed himself. Kiera is facing a nightmare not unlike Aaron's, but we can help.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

That's a great idea.

I hope you also web search her opponent before you donate. Maybe they're worse.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

I'm not trolling.

Why does this girl deserve attention? Why did she get it? I genuinely can't come up with a reason.

Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons? Because this is absolutely not out of ordinary, and I've personally seen a 12-year-old expelled and nearly charged with a crime because his mother packed him a steak knife without realizing the school's zero-tolerance policy.

I wish this girl the best and she deserves a fair trial, but sometimes I wonder if society's tack of showering money on people's legal fund merely because they made news puts incentives in the right places...

If you down vote, can you explain why? I'd like to have an objective conversation about this without drive-by downvotes to shut me up.

jonathanjaeger• 13 years ago

There are grave injustices every day in this country (or any country, really). It's impossible to give everything the attention it deserves without solving systemic issues. However, that doesn't mean people should ignore any one particular event because other bad events happen in the world too.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

If you notice, I never advocated for ignoring it. I wondered why we're aware of it in the first place.

marshray5• 13 years ago

The campaign is currently at $1332. That hardly counts as "showering money" upon someone who is facing two felony charges and needing legal representation.

This girl does not deserve a fair trial. She deserves an apology.

The responsible staff at the state attorney's office deserve to be laughed out of office.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

And you reached that conclusion based on what evidence? Good thing we don't need evidence to determine guilt in a court of law, since it sounds like you've got the findings figured out already based on what you've read in the news and in statements.

I'm not saying anybody is lying. There is just usually more to these stories.

derrida2• 13 years ago

Curiosity is not a crime.

Court is a resource war. The true cost of a legal defence can easily get into the $100k range

I donated to make sure that their was a fair trial, or else we will have someone pleading to a felony early for a school science experiment.

> Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Yes, if I am aware of it & can afford it.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

I'm not sure where you pulled that number from. I've successfully defended against multiple charges in my life, unsuccessfully others, and the only money I was out was a couple forms and bail, which I got back. The charges I got out of involved a public defender. When I hired a lawyer, I was convicted.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the criminal system from people that have never been through it and, by the very nature of how the criminal system works -- especially if you end up in front of a jury -- it's impossible to predict how anything will play out.

I'm more concerned that people are donating to a legal fund after reading news statements and, possibly, the police report.

aethertap• 13 years ago

I'm far from a legal expert, but here's why I'd do it:

I don't like to see this kind of abuse by people like the school administrators, etc. If this case is well-funded and successful, it might become precedent for many others, and thus weaken the whole concept of "zero-tolerance" by providing a relevant case for future victims to use in their defense. If she loses, then the opposite will be the case (there will be precedent for draconian punishment) and it'll grease the skids for future convictions.

That's my (possibly ill-informed) reason, I'd be interested to hear if other people here think it is valid or not.

smsm424• 13 years ago

>>> Why does this girl deserve attention?

Because injustice is being done to her and we know about it.

>>> Why did she get it?

No idea. Luck?

>>> Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Not all of them. But probably some of them.

>>> she deserves a fair trial

Actually she doesn't deserve any trial. What she deserves is a talk with her science teacher about how to conduct experiments safely and maybe two-day suspension for scaring the crap out of couple of adults and wasting police's time. And a subscription to a couple of science magazines from her parents.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

And you have all the facts, then?

michaelhoffman4• 13 years ago

> If you down vote, can you explain why?

I always downvote comments that contain complaints or predictions about potential downvotes. Your opinions should stand on their own merits, and let the upvotes or downvotes come as they will.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

What a great blanket policy, regardless of the rest of the comment. On the accounts I've had downvote privileges with, I've reserved them for cases where the comment doesn't contribute anything or is disruptive to the discussion; no wonder I get downvoted a lot, there must be a lot of people misusing downvoting as you are. And yes, I'm aware of the guideline. That you've turned a guideline into a blanket downvote-all is pretty depressing, particularly since I didn't complain or invite, as the guidelines specifically say.

I made a request since I've left comments before that have hit the toilet bowl rather quickly, merely because I went against the grain of this sort of feel-good philanthropy. There was no other reason to downvote those prior comments other than disagreeing, which I think is misuse of downvoting. I've already accrued more downvotes on the comment than there are followup comments, so people are ignoring the request anyway, and probably not even making it that far in the comment before clicking the button.

I wish pg would implement a feature where a downvote costs you a karma point. That would be great. Between refreshes I can watch every comment I've left in this thread lose another point, because someone comes through and blanket downvotes everything I've said. Which, obviously, I interpret as trying to shut up (now that graying has been implemented) an opinion that people find unreasonable, rather than letting their own opinion stand on its own merit, as you say, as a reply to mine.

noonespecial• 13 years ago

>Are you guys prepared to contribute to the legal funds of everyone who is expelled and charged with crimes for unfair reasons?

Hell yes. We should get involved. Every. Single. Time. This stuff thrives on people just shrugging their shoulders and moving on, reminding themselves to keep their heads extra down. If we made a stink every time, there wouldn't have to be many times.

When you donate, or even just take the time to get involved, think of it as raising your own taxes just a smidge to actually make the system better.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

I don't think of it that way. I think of it as giving money to someone I don't know, so that person can forward (with my trust) it on to someone else who didn't ask for it and potentially doesn't need it (what if her family are billionaires?), to defend against charges that I don't have the full story on (and it's part of my DNA to wait for the facts, sorry if you guys are a little more hasty), for a person I'll never meet and who will be fine from this either way.

Making the system better isn't a legal fund for a kid. Making the system better is a legal fund for anybody that ends up in this situation. That's my point, but apparently I'm not allowed to share it since I wasn't educated in private school[1]. I'm not fiscally conservative, but donating to someone's legal defense personally doesn't sit right with me in the general, even more so if the only reason most people are doing so is because the news made them aware of it and dictated the story that you heard.

I think to a lesser extent there's a little bit of overcompensation going on here since it was revealed posthumously that Aaron Swartz needed money for his legal defense but couldn't ask for it. A Cmd+F of his name around this thread should provide that evidence.

All I ever advocate for is caution. If you see a news story and go "wow, that sucks, I'm going to give her some money," the news media successfully manipulated you. I used to work in print; there are Hollywoodesque people that will send press releases to news organizations on behalf of families in this situation, with promises of tearjerking interviews. I'm serious. I'm just advocating for caution, and in the more broad the trend of Internet lynch mobbing and culting that potentially cost a missing Brown student his life recently. The Internet is graduating into a much more powerful force, particularly here on Hacker News and other sites like Reddit, and I worry about the long-term consequences of acting without full facts of a situation.

I'm really tired of this thread.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5653912

rayiner2• 13 years ago

God this is what private school is for.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

Come again? Can you elaborate on what you mean?

chc2• 13 years ago

> I've personally seen a 12-year-old expelled and nearly charged with a crime

If you actually mean to compare "nearly charged with a crime" with "charged with two felonies," I don't see how we can have a productive conversation, because that is just too bizarre to wrap my head around.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

Then it's good that I didn't mean to compare them, and instead illustrate that overreaction is common.

ScottBurson• 13 years ago

It's ridiculous to suggest that we should do nothing about an injustice that comes to our attention just because it's not the only injustice in the world, and we're not going to do anything about most of them (not least because we don't know about them). Some injustices we care more about than others, and we need not justify ourselves to you.

That said, if you see a news story about a 12-year-old expelled because his mother packed him a steak knife, feel free to submit it. I can't promise it will be upvoted onto the front page, but it's worth a try. I will probably read it if I notice it.

Not to justify myself, but to satisfy your curiosity, I will attempt to answer your question. This girl's situation attracts attention here on HN, I surmise, because her intent was scientific in nature. Okay, it's a teenager's science experiment, but still, she was exploring the physical world. This is something that a lot of people here can relate to.

tiredofcareer14• 13 years ago

It's ridiculous to suggest that I'm implying we should do nothing now that we're aware of it, since I damn near typed verbatim "why are we aware of this?" as the thesis point of my comment. Reactions to my comment are all over the place, this has been a net karma sink for sharing an unpopular opinion, and there's someone mocking my education for sharing it. So much for civil discourse, and congratulations on being on the "right" side of this opinion, I guess (as disappointing as it is that there is a "right" side).

GhotiFish• 13 years ago

I guess the same reason that everyone gave Aaron so much attention.

Over-reactions from political chest thumping ruins lives and damages society. The general public needs to understand that concept. The best way to communicate that to the primitive ape like creatures milling about on our rock in space is to tell them a personal story.

Basically, it's public manipulation, with blessing because it's manipulating the public in the right direction.

duncan_bayne2• 13 years ago

This:

http://www.atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/Unrugged_Ind...

"... benevolence is a commitment to engage with others, to participate in society, in order to achieve the values derivable from other human beings. This commitment is based on the belief that one’s interests are not in conflict with those of others, but in basic harmony. It involves the expectation that one will be able to like, respect, enjoy the company of, or at least profit economically from exchanges with, most of the people around one—that they will make a positive contribution to one’s life."

gruseom• 13 years ago

It's true that we don't have enough information to tell what was really going on, but I donated anyway. What the kid appears to have done—mixed stuff together to see what would happen—falls in the "moderate" part of the spectrum of things that curious teenagers do. A lot of significant contributors to society, not to mention a lot of people on this site, have similar episodes in their past. I figure the least we can give her is the benefit of the doubt, and we live in a system where the benefit of the doubt has a price: adequate legal representation. Let her have a good lawyer and let's see how long those felony charges last.

One thing's for sure, that lawyer will be able to call on a long list of prestigious expert witnesses.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

Better would be finding a lawyer in Florida willing to take this pro bono. Maybe figure out a way to countersue the school.

omarrr• 13 years ago

At least 50% of the teenagers in this world who have access to products X and Y would mix them up if somebody told them that mixing X and Y will create an explosion.

That's the nature of being a teenager. As far as I'm concerned teenagers are showing more signs of mental health than adults these days.

np422• 13 years ago

When I was a kid/teenager I blew up everything from large condensators, old TV sets, pet-bottles and one time there was even a broken window.

I didn't end up as a criminal or a terrorist .... I got and engineering degree.

Society need to reacquire common sense and a sense of humour.

duncan_bayne2• 13 years ago

I've contributed. I once shocked my high school physics teacher (literally) by messing with an electric motor we'd made in class. If I'd done that in Kiera's school I'd probably have been waterboarded by the principal or something.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

Even if you still think she's guilty as sin, ask yourself whether you trust the American justice system enough to let her go through the ringer without financial support.

antihero2• 13 years ago

Surely for crimes there has to be motive.

antihero2• 13 years ago

Seriously though, which federal could sleep at night nay live with themselves for prosecuting on this one?

SaraRhiannon• 13 years ago

http://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-dr...

to anyone who thinks Kiera's charges should be dropped, sign this petition on change.org...it still needs over 5,000 signatures. we have to save her.

dlitz• 13 years ago

Updated info about the case, from Kiera's lawyer: http://www.businessinsider.com/kiera-wilmot-lawyer-hoping-to...

argumentum• 13 years ago

Donated. I often wonder what the motivation is behind charges like these. It's often political, as in the Swartz case. But I think usually, it's simply that the DAs get satisfaction from being bullies.

Help Kiera with her legal bills

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