The Hacker Max Butler charges (several questions)

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Butler attended Boise State University for a year. In 1991, Butler was convicted of assault during his freshman year of college. His appeal was unsuccessful or procedural grounds, as a judge ruled that Butler's defense attorney did not raise the issue in an earlier appeal. The Idaho State Penitentiary paroled Butler on 26 April 1995.

What is the meaning of procedural ground?
(I am not English Native, so I need explanation).
Thank you in advance.
 
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Generally, you need to make your objections or issues with a decision in a trial court in that court. A court of appeals (those above trial courts) generally will not consider arguments on issues where you failed to make your objections in the trial court. See "Preservation Issues" here. If someone were to appeal a trial court decision on the basis of a single issue and they failed to make their objection in the trial court on that issue, then the court of appeals might dismiss the appeal for that reason. What makes it procedural is that the court of appeals did not make a decision "on the merits," i.e., didn't decide whether you are right or wrong on the issue, it simply decided you have not properly brought the issue before the court of appeals.

EDIT: I see the wiki says Butler's appeal failed because of failure to raise it an earlier appeal, not trial. Nevertheless, the explanation I gave above still explains "procedural" versus "on the merits."
 
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Also a lot of appeals are based on something the defense attorney failed to do like question the medical examiner about to cause of death in a murder case or some other evidence that implicated the defendent.

In one Texas case, it was determined on appeal that the prosecutor had a hidden relationship with the judge that was not disclosed until sometime later in a divorce proceeding. Defendents in those trials appealed their verdicts on that grounds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/10texas.html

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...h-the-prosecutor-in-a-death-penalty-case.html

https://www.texastribune.org/2010/04/19/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-hood-case/

https://www.lubbockonline.com/story...eads-guilty-da-judge-affair-case/15107356007/

But from reading the articles you can see how convoluted things can become with one testimony being called hearsay until finally the sentence via a plea deal was changed from death row to life in prison.
 
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In Max Butler Wikipedia article (that is under FBI investigation, guilty plea, and sentencing title)
Butler also targeted Citibank by using a Trojan horse towards a credit card identity thief and began distributing PINs to Aragon, who would have others withdraw the maximum daily amount of cash from ATMs until the compromised account was empty.[19]
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Butler
What is the meaning of to begin distributing PINs?
What is distributing PINs?
 
It was not the ATMs that were emptied. It was the accounts accessed through the ATMs that were emptied. Usually people have a daily maximum that can withdrawn from their account through an ATM. For an example, if the most cash I can remove from my account through an ATM is $500 per day and I have $2000 in my account, then it would take 4 days, using my PIN at the ATM, to empty my account.
 
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Actually list of all PINs from 0000 to 9999 shows now and there on the Internet.
 
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