4 ms·

I agree that the prosecutors were unnecessarily aggressive in the way they want after Aaron in this case. However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyon

by slg 6y ago

I agree that the prosecutors were unnecessarily aggressive in the way they want after Aaron in this case. However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a murder. If someone gets fired for their job and commits suicide, is their boss liable? If someone is dumped by their significant other and commits suicide, is their former partner liable? This also isn't getting into the problem this presents for the legal system. Does someone fabricating suicidal thoughts force the government's hand into a lighter sentence? Also suicide is never a "reasonably foreseeable outcome" when someone is faced with a 6 month jail sentence. There are literally millions of people in jail in this country for longer sentences that never consider suicide. Anyone who thinks throwing away the 50 years post jail sentence is worth not having to endure a rough few months is not in a good mental state. This country does a horrible job helping people with mental health issues. That is generally what kills people who die by suicide. It isn't whatever event is ultimately the impetus for the action.

wtallis 6y ago
> However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a murder. Most people don't have such inescapable power underlying their threats. The government is a good deal more fearsome than most individuals who aren't directly threatening murder in the traditional sense. > Also suicide is never a "reasonably foreseeable outcome" when someone is faced with a 6 month jail sentence. It's a bit disingenuous to call it a threat of 6 months in jail. That was a plea bargain offer with other strings attached, that came after Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years. By the time the 6 month offer was made, Swartz had already been subject to more abuse and harassment than his actions could have ever justified. He was deep into a Kafkaesque nightmare before the prosecution offered the first shreds of mercy.
- ryanlol 6y ago
  > Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years This never happened.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed against him carried those maximum penalties. It happened. The prosecutors did eventually state that they would not seek maximum penalties, but that's not a guarantee, and it's not something that was communicated at the time the charges were initially brought against him.
    - ryanlol 6y ago
      > There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed against him carried those maximum penalties Yes, and those reports fail to accurately communicate the possible range of punishments that Swartz could’ve received. At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7 years. A very harsh, but unlikely sentence.
      - wtallis 6y ago
        > At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7 years. From what I can find, "at the time" here means at the time of the plea bargain offer, not at the time he was charged, or at the time they added more charges.
        ryanlol 6y ago
        Are you saying that the sentencing guidelines changed during the trial? Suggesting that Swartz was threatened with a 35-year sentence requires some extraordinary mental gymnastics.
        ionwake 6y ago
        I’m not from the US but I remember reading at the time that the max sentence was 50y
        javagram 6y ago
        News articles and press releases from the DOJ often include a theoretical maximum sentence that is unconnected with how a judge will actually assign a sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci... A defendant with competent legal counsel (as Aaron Swartz had) would have been informed by them of the likely actual range of the sentence if found guilty.
- slg 6y ago
  >Most people don't have such inescapable power underlying their threats. The government is a good deal more fearsome than most individuals who aren't directly threatening murder in the traditional sense. The government isn't a singular person. A prosecutor does not have "inescapable power underlying their threats". They are a single person in a system. There are numerous other people involved in the system that have roles that serve to rein in prosecutors if Aaron allowed the process to fully play out. >It's a bit disingenuous to call it a threat of 6 months in jail. That was a plea bargain offer with other strings attached, that came after Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years. By the time the 6 month offer was made, Swartz had already been subject to more abuse and harassment than his actions could have ever justified. He was deep into a Kafkaesque nightmare before the prosecution offered the first shreds of mercy. No one reasonably expected him to spend 35-50 years in jail so citing that as a potential outcome is much more disingenuous than saying he might serve 6 months. Sure, there are strings attached to plea deals, but it is a simple fact that he had the option to serve that 6 months and end any further threat of jail. He instead chose death. That decision was caused by his mental illness and not any person who might have wronged him.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    > There are numerous other people involved in the system that have roles that serve to rein in prosecutors if Aaron allowed the process to fully play out. That "fully playing out" you refer to is a process that would have most likely involved appeals carried out while Swartz served prison time—probably longer than 6 months. I think you're following the prosecutor's playbook in trying to make 6 months and assorted other harassment sound more reasonable by comparison to decades of prison time, when it's still an unreasonable proposition. The consequences of a guilty plea were certainly not going to disappear from Swartz's life after six months.
    - slg 6y ago
      He didn't have to wait for appeals that might take years, but he didn't even wait for a jury or judge to weigh in on the situation. That could have let him off without spending any time in jail. The first sentence of my first comment said the prosecutor was too aggressive. I'm not trying to make 6 months of jail sound reasonable for his crime. I am trying to point out that suicide is not a reasonable response to the situation Aaron was in.
- tzs 6y ago
  It was never really 35 years (or 50 years). Those kind of numbers come from just taking everything someone is charged with one by one, figuring the maximum sentence that is possible to come from an instance of that crime in isolation, and then adding those all up. That almost always massively overstates the sentence for a couple reasons. 1. Federal crimes are divided into groups. If you are convicted of more than one crime in the same group, you are effectively only sentenced for one of them. When you see an indictment with a lot of charges there usually is a lot of grouping going on and so it looks a lot more scary than it actually is. 2. Most federal crimes have a range of possible sentences, ranging up to 10 or 20 years. Most of the time the judge will determine where your sentence falls in that range by following the federal sentencing guidelines. Those basically start at the low end and then various modifiers can push it up. The modifiers include things like how much monetary loss you caused, whether you used a weapon, whether you recruited or directed other people to help in your crime, whether you involved minors in your crime, and the seriousness of recent past crimes of yours. That's just some, there are more, and there are some that can lower the sentence. In Swartz's case, first offense, no weapon, not part of a criminal enterprise, etc., it would really come down to the monetary loss. According to Swartz's lawyers, the prosecutors thought a sentence of up to 7 years was possible which suggests they were going to try to prove millions of dollars in damages. Swartz's lawyers thought there was a good chance he'd just get probation which suggests that they thought they could show that damages were under $10k. There were actually two plea bargain offers. One was plead guilty to the felonies and they all agree on a 4 month sentence. The other was plead guilty and the government will argue for 6 months with the judge, and Swartz can argue for less (or probabtion). Here's a good entertaining article on how federal sentencing works and how the numbers are greatly exaggerated in press releases [1]. Here's a two part article on the Swartz charges [2] [3]. The first looks at whether the charges individually fit the alleged facts. The second looks at, among other things, potential sentencing (and was my source for what Swartz's lawyers thought might happen). [1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc... [2] http://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ [3] http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa...
a1369209993 6y ago
> However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a murder. Not "anyone"; a public official who (I assume) willing swore a oath not to abuse the authority they were unwisely trusted with.

by slg 6y ago

wtallis 6y ago

> However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a murder. Most people don't have such inescapable power underlying their threats. The government is a good deal more fearsome than most individuals who aren't directly threatening murder in the traditional sense. > Also suicide is never a "reasonably foreseeable outcome" when someone is faced with a 6 month jail sentence. It's a bit disingenuous to call it a threat of 6 months in jail. That was a plea bargain offer with other strings attached, that came after Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years. By the time the 6 month offer was made, Swartz had already been subject to more abuse and harassment than his actions could have ever justified. He was deep into a Kafkaesque nightmare before the prosecution offered the first shreds of mercy.

ryanlol 6y ago
> Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years This never happened.
- wtallis 6y ago
  There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed against him carried those maximum penalties. It happened. The prosecutors did eventually state that they would not seek maximum penalties, but that's not a guarantee, and it's not something that was communicated at the time the charges were initially brought against him.
  - ryanlol 6y ago
    > There are copious news reports from the time that state the charges filed against him carried those maximum penalties Yes, and those reports fail to accurately communicate the possible range of punishments that Swartz could’ve received. At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7 years. A very harsh, but unlikely sentence.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      > At the time the prosecutors claimed that Swartz could’ve faced at most 7 years. From what I can find, "at the time" here means at the time of the plea bargain offer, not at the time he was charged, or at the time they added more charges.
      - ryanlol 6y ago
        Are you saying that the sentencing guidelines changed during the trial? Suggesting that Swartz was threatened with a 35-year sentence requires some extraordinary mental gymnastics.
        ionwake 6y ago
        I’m not from the US but I remember reading at the time that the max sentence was 50y
        javagram 6y ago
        News articles and press releases from the DOJ often include a theoretical maximum sentence that is unconnected with how a judge will actually assign a sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci... A defendant with competent legal counsel (as Aaron Swartz had) would have been informed by them of the likely actual range of the sentence if found guilty.
slg 6y ago
>Most people don't have such inescapable power underlying their threats. The government is a good deal more fearsome than most individuals who aren't directly threatening murder in the traditional sense. The government isn't a singular person. A prosecutor does not have "inescapable power underlying their threats". They are a single person in a system. There are numerous other people involved in the system that have roles that serve to rein in prosecutors if Aaron allowed the process to fully play out. >It's a bit disingenuous to call it a threat of 6 months in jail. That was a plea bargain offer with other strings attached, that came after Swartz was threatened with up to 35 years and then more charges were added bringing the potential up to 50 years. By the time the 6 month offer was made, Swartz had already been subject to more abuse and harassment than his actions could have ever justified. He was deep into a Kafkaesque nightmare before the prosecution offered the first shreds of mercy. No one reasonably expected him to spend 35-50 years in jail so citing that as a potential outcome is much more disingenuous than saying he might serve 6 months. Sure, there are strings attached to plea deals, but it is a simple fact that he had the option to serve that 6 months and end any further threat of jail. He instead chose death. That decision was caused by his mental illness and not any person who might have wronged him.
- wtallis 6y ago
  > There are numerous other people involved in the system that have roles that serve to rein in prosecutors if Aaron allowed the process to fully play out. That "fully playing out" you refer to is a process that would have most likely involved appeals carried out while Swartz served prison time—probably longer than 6 months. I think you're following the prosecutor's playbook in trying to make 6 months and assorted other harassment sound more reasonable by comparison to decades of prison time, when it's still an unreasonable proposition. The consequences of a guilty plea were certainly not going to disappear from Swartz's life after six months.
  - slg 6y ago
    He didn't have to wait for appeals that might take years, but he didn't even wait for a jury or judge to weigh in on the situation. That could have let him off without spending any time in jail. The first sentence of my first comment said the prosecutor was too aggressive. I'm not trying to make 6 months of jail sound reasonable for his crime. I am trying to point out that suicide is not a reasonable response to the situation Aaron was in.
tzs 6y ago
It was never really 35 years (or 50 years). Those kind of numbers come from just taking everything someone is charged with one by one, figuring the maximum sentence that is possible to come from an instance of that crime in isolation, and then adding those all up. That almost always massively overstates the sentence for a couple reasons. 1. Federal crimes are divided into groups. If you are convicted of more than one crime in the same group, you are effectively only sentenced for one of them. When you see an indictment with a lot of charges there usually is a lot of grouping going on and so it looks a lot more scary than it actually is. 2. Most federal crimes have a range of possible sentences, ranging up to 10 or 20 years. Most of the time the judge will determine where your sentence falls in that range by following the federal sentencing guidelines. Those basically start at the low end and then various modifiers can push it up. The modifiers include things like how much monetary loss you caused, whether you used a weapon, whether you recruited or directed other people to help in your crime, whether you involved minors in your crime, and the seriousness of recent past crimes of yours. That's just some, there are more, and there are some that can lower the sentence. In Swartz's case, first offense, no weapon, not part of a criminal enterprise, etc., it would really come down to the monetary loss. According to Swartz's lawyers, the prosecutors thought a sentence of up to 7 years was possible which suggests they were going to try to prove millions of dollars in damages. Swartz's lawyers thought there was a good chance he'd just get probation which suggests that they thought they could show that damages were under $10k. There were actually two plea bargain offers. One was plead guilty to the felonies and they all agree on a 4 month sentence. The other was plead guilty and the government will argue for 6 months with the judge, and Swartz can argue for less (or probabtion). Here's a good entertaining article on how federal sentencing works and how the numbers are greatly exaggerated in press releases [1]. Here's a two part article on the Swartz charges [2] [3]. The first looks at whether the charges individually fit the alleged facts. The second looks at, among other things, potential sentencing (and was my source for what Swartz's lawyers thought might happen). [1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc... [2] http://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/ [3] http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa...

a1369209993 6y ago

> However it is a dangerous precedent to set that anyone who does something that might be seen as a catalyst for suicide can be found culpable in a murder. Not "anyone"; a public official who (I assume) willing swore a oath not to abuse the authority they were unwisely trusted with.