It's been said in the other threads but it bears repeating: while Ortiz is by all accounts an opportunistic US attorney on a mission to attain political office,

It's been said in the other threads but it bears repeating: while Ortiz is by all accounts an opportunistic US attorney on a mission to attain political office, and as such will always be part of the system rather than strive to change it, it's important to remember that the one pushing Aaron's case out of proportion was really Steve Heymann. To a certain degree it's appropriate to question the involvement and lack of restraint displayed by powerful people running up the chain of command, but let's not forget that in the end it takes a malevolent executing instrument to make these things happen to victims who can't possibly defend themselves. This instrument is Heymann, not Ortiz. Of course, judicial and executive malevolence and malfeasance don't exist in a vacuum. There are jobs that disproportionally attract certain kinds of people who are, for want of a better term, somewhat evil. We as a society encourage them (e.g. by measuring their conviction rate instead of how reasonable and just they are in office) and then we are surprised by the appalling nature of the system. We need to stop doing that, but I see no realistic way of accomplishing this with any degree of public support in the current climate. At the very least though we should recognize that these "public servants" have way too much power and there are clearly not enough checks and balances in the system to prevent this kind of abuse.