In my attempt to be clear about the piece of your rant I was calling attention to, I was imprecise. Your previous comment had been directed at asserting there was obviously a difference between someone verbally stating refusal and someone attempting to comply. I can see how you could choose to read that into what the other poster said, but it is not a charitable interpretation.
> There's no observable difference between inability to produce a result and refusing to produce a result.
I don't see how that is open to interpretations, regardless of charitability. I think it is total, unabashed poppycock.
> How do they know he didn't just forget the password? Or that the password was recorded somewhere that he no longer has access to?
Credible testimony and other evidence.
> After sitting in jail for many months, it is very easy to forget a password that you no longer use regularly.
Right, and that is not the issue. Obviously the judge did not find this guy to be credible in the first instance.
That having been said, I'm a corporate lawyer, so my apologies if I was unnecessarily aggressive in my reply to your post. It is something I always have to watch out for, but your points are appreciated and thanks for taking the time to engage.
> I don't see how that is open to interpretations,
I can see a few things the author might be trying to convey. The most interesting would probably be "[There are cases where t]here's no observable difference [...]". I think the alternative I suggested ("[...] produce a result while pretending not to.") is better supported as the authors probable intent (while being a stronger statement and correspondingly less likely to be accurate).
In any case, pragmatics + charity should tell us someone wasn't asserting we can't tell the difference between a person saying "I can't" and a person saying "I won't", and if you can't figure out what else they might have meant the first thing to do is ask.
