At this writing, Terry Childs has been in San Francisco Jail for one year, three months, and four days. His crime: refusing to hand over administrative passwords to San Francisco's city network.

His case has yet to go to trial, having been delayed dozens of times in the intervening months. Three of the four charges brought against him were thrown out of court in August, but his subsequent motion for a reduction in his $5 million bail was denied -- again -- and he still sits in the same jailhouse.

[ InfoWorld contributing editor Paul Venezia has led the way in covering the bizarre case of Terry Childs. Consult our InfoWorld special report for a complete index to that coverage. ]

Just to be clear, that bail figure is far larger than that normally recommended for rape, murder, or other violent crimes. In fact, in San Francisco City and County, it's five times higher than, say, kidnapping for ransom or sexual abuse of a minor. Whatever you think of this case or of Childs' guilt or innocence, it's obvious that he has been held to a ridiculous standard, and that his right to a right to a speedy trial has been violated.

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly, but I cannot help but think that brakes have been applied to these particular wheels. Perhaps it's an attempt to prevent embarrassment for the city, or someone hopes that the case will simply disappear. What's certain is that this case should have gone to trial a long time ago. At the very least, Childs' bail should have been reduced to a reasonable level well before now.

Yet it's clear why that bail hasn't been reduced. Every time a bail reduction motion is brought forward, the prosecution brings out all the technological boogeymen it can and throws them at nontechnical judges. If you take a judge that might even know a thing or two about computing and say, "If you let him out of jail, he will destroy the network," that juشdge simply isn't going to have enough background knowledge to think otherwise, and the motion is denied.

Naturally, for the average network architect, the 15 months Childs has languished in jail is more than enough time to secure a network against a former insider's threat. In fact, it could be argued that every switchport throughout the entire network could be physically inspected well within that timeframe.

Make no mistake. If the people now running the network cannot state definitively that the network is free of any backdoors Childs may have planted, they should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.