6 ms·

Government formally drops charges against Aaron Swartz

64 points by geetarista 14y ago

pseingatl 14y ago
Felony charges abate at death. Either side can file a document known as a "Suggestion of Death" to the court. The case is the dismissed by the court. The Government did not "drop the charges," though I don't doubt that they filed a motion trying to do so. I don't believe there was a civil forfeiture but if there were they would move to substitute the Estate for the individual. This is not the case in criminal cases.
jacquesm 14y ago
That's 4 days late.
mark-r 14y ago
This is non news. What else were they going to do?
- derleth 14y ago
  > This is non news. What else were they going to do? Dig him up, put his corpse on trial, cut off three of his fingers, re-bury him in a graveyard for foreigners, dig him back up, and dump his body in the Tiber? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
  - tibbon 14y ago
    TIL....
- rhizome 14y ago
  It's standard, but I was struck that it appears to have been at the top of their to-do list this morning rather than some days from now. I'm guessing they want to head off any reporters talking to personnel, because the second some DoJ lackey in the process gets asked "how do you feel about this?" a can of worms will open right up.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    What's the standard amount of time to delay before dropping charges?
  - rprasad 14y ago
    You're overthinking it. It's a pro forma activity that takes all of 30 seconds, and doing it now means they can close the case file sooner rather than later.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      It's easy enough to check, has every other case against someone who died been dropped already? Does the DoJ have an API?
      - rprasad 14y ago
        It's not easy to check: PACER does not provide that sort of functionality and the courts have not bothered to record death of defendant as a data field. You're welcome to attempt this project by hand; it will probably take you the rest of your natural life. PACER was designed and implemented in the days when AOL and Compuserve were the Internet. It doesn't have an API.
- jetti 14y ago
  This is non-news in more ways than one. There was a link to the CBC's website with this same story. In it, they state: " The notice says the case is being dismissed because of Swartz's death. Such filings are routine when a defendant dies before trial." - http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/14/us-reddit-aaron-swartz-jstor-mit.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/14/us-reddit... This isn't news and it is standard procedure. Just because Aaron Swartz's name is tied to it means that there shall be page views so why not sensationalize it?
- CyberDroiD 14y ago
  Wrong #1: It happened, they reported it. It's news! Wrong #2: What else were they going to do? Interesting question, but what does it have to do with your statement regarding newsworthiness? I assume you are trolling hard and fast with your immature post?
  - mark-r 14y ago
    Not really, just pointing out the obvious. I was surprised to find it on the front page of HN. Even more surprised to find responses to this comment.
bryanmig 14y ago
Admittedly, I dont know anything about the law but I have a couple of questions: 1) If convicted, would that have set some precedent that could have affected others for years to come? 2) If the "Suggest of Death" papers were filed, does that mean that the courts cannot convict him of any wrong doing, thus preventing any precedent from being set? (Though it sounds like one.. this is not a conspiracy theory.. just a legitimate question)
- mpyne 14y ago
  Your questions are kind of like asking about what could happen if we could go faster than the speed of light. But in this case I don't think there's much to be gained precedent-wise one way or the other, the applicable laws have been on the books (at least in their basic form) for decades.
- vacri 14y ago
  Common law holds an individual responsible for their actions, not their families or associates. As such, there is no-one to punish in the event of death, so there is no point in continuing the trial (and no-one to pay for a defense, hence no fair trial is possible). It's why in some areas suicide is not a crime, but attempted suicide is.
- jelled 14y ago
  Criminal convictions don't carry any binding authority of precedent. Only if some issue of the case were to be appealed, would the ruling on that issue become precedent on courts subject to that appellate jurisdiction. Having said that, a successful conviction could encourage other ambitious AUSAs to bring charges in situations with similar facts.
- pseingatl 14y ago
  1. Generally speaking, district court criminal cases are non-precedential; i.e., they are not binding on other courts. Sometimes a district court will decide a legal issue that is adopted by a higher court and then becomes precedential. But the more I think about this case, the more it seems to be a political case, and in political cases, the rules are different. In this case, if the Internet reporting is correct, Swartz was only given the option to plead open to the indictment. That is extraordinary. Usually in a non-political case the prosecutor will agree to dismiss most of the counts in exchange for a guilty plea; would recommend a cap or prospective sentence, agree on the amount of the fine, agree not to allocute, etc. Someone wanted Swartz' head on a pike, perhaps for the PACER episode. 2. Yes. Upon the death of the defendant, the case is over. With all respect to Ms. Ortiz, Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Crim. Proc. shouldn't apply in this case. That rule relates to the dismissal of charges before trial. Upon the death of the defendant, the case cannot proceed to trial as there is no longer a case or controversy; there is only one name on the side of the v. and there needs to be a name on each side. This is a simplification, and it may well be a practice in the District of Massachusetts, but it is not the correct procedure (though I may be hypertechnical here). The point is that it wasn't government benevolence that caused them to file, the case was over upon the death of the sole criminal defendant. If there was another party involved, the case can and would proceed, absent a plea.
mindslight 14y ago
I'll drop my personal indictment of USG after it's dead too.
- bdcravens 14y ago
  What do you have against a building materials company?
  - mindslight 14y ago
    Have you never knocked on a drywall wall? Have a sense of permanence and use plaster. Also, it's a bit odd when you find out their second largest market is food additives.
- pekk 14y ago
  Please let us know in a year how the Civil War is going.
  - mindslight 14y ago
    It's not a war, as it's not even really an actionable thing. It's a calmly stated judgment that informs interpretation of events. USG, having become entirely inconsistent with its founding philosophy, the purported highest law of the land, and the People's will, has ceased being a legitimate government by or for the People. It should instead be regarded as an uncontrolled, extremely powerful entity to be avoided at all costs, and hopefully worked around eventually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017141
    - pekk 14y ago
      Who would you like to rule instead?
      - oinksoft 14y ago
        Nobody.
geetarista 14y ago
I think the point is that the charges were dropped ONLY because he passed away. There is no mention of any fault in how he was prosecuted even after all the recent press and outcry from so many people. They just washed their hands of it and moved on.
HalcyonicStorm 14y ago
It's too late to apologize....It's too late
spoiledtechie 14y ago
Can we please actually push for change within our government over this tragic loss. There seems to be a problem, how many more times are we going to allow the justice department to do this to individuals? I hate to compare the notion, but to put it into perspective. Every time I hear of a woman getting raped and the man not being prosecuted because the woman just feels like she shouldn't, I get truly upset. This shows the man, that it was acceptable and he can do it again. How many more times are we going to allow the justice department to push around people of much lesser worth in this world?
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Every time I hear of a woman getting raped and the man not being prosecuted because the woman just feels like she shouldn't, I get truly upset. So you think the government should continue to prosecute cases even when the victim of the crime claims that no crime occurred?
  - spoiledtechie 14y ago
    No, but they should stop overstepping their bounds.
  - rauljara 14y ago
    It gets complicated sometimes. What if the mafia have repeatedly extorted money from a shop owner, and the government can prove it but the shop owner doesn't want to press charges because he's worried of what the mafia will do to him? That's not an abstract hypothetical, that's how the mafia traditionally operated. In the case of rape, the traditional defense is to drag the woman's reputation through the mud. Often there is pressure from the woman's place of work, and she really can suffer retaliation if she pursues the case. There aren't really easy answers in these cases, and I don't mean to imply that there are. But a blanket, "don't prosecute unless the victim wants us to" policy provides a lot of incentives for the criminal to engage in victim intimidation.
    - tedunangst 14y ago
nerdfiles 14y ago
Not to sound crass, or maybe I want to sound crass. But this is just looking like a chess game now. As if we couldn't see this kind of thing coming with the way the movie industry portrayed hacking in the 80s and 90s. Public consciousness will, I venture to assert, take this kind of non-news as the new news norm. To the dismay of EFF, Creative Commons, Wikileaks, etc.
babuskov 14y ago
So, they admit pressure was only there to make him commit suicide? Now that he's done it, charges can be dropped?

64 points by geetarista 14y ago

Felony charges abate at death. Either side can file a document known as a "Suggestion of Death" to the court. The case is the dismissed by the court. The Government did not "drop the charges," though I don't doubt that they filed a motion trying to do so. I don't believe there was a civil forfeiture but if there were they would move to substitute the Estate for the individual. This is not the case in criminal cases.

jacquesm 14y ago

That's 4 days late.

mark-r 14y ago

This is non news. What else were they going to do?

derleth 14y ago
> This is non news. What else were they going to do? Dig him up, put his corpse on trial, cut off three of his fingers, re-bury him in a graveyard for foreigners, dig him back up, and dump his body in the Tiber? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
- tibbon 14y ago
  TIL....
rhizome 14y ago
It's standard, but I was struck that it appears to have been at the top of their to-do list this morning rather than some days from now. I'm guessing they want to head off any reporters talking to personnel, because the second some DoJ lackey in the process gets asked "how do you feel about this?" a can of worms will open right up.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  What's the standard amount of time to delay before dropping charges?
- rprasad 14y ago
  You're overthinking it. It's a pro forma activity that takes all of 30 seconds, and doing it now means they can close the case file sooner rather than later.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    It's easy enough to check, has every other case against someone who died been dropped already? Does the DoJ have an API?
    - rprasad 14y ago
      It's not easy to check: PACER does not provide that sort of functionality and the courts have not bothered to record death of defendant as a data field. You're welcome to attempt this project by hand; it will probably take you the rest of your natural life. PACER was designed and implemented in the days when AOL and Compuserve were the Internet. It doesn't have an API.
jetti 14y ago
This is non-news in more ways than one. There was a link to the CBC's website with this same story. In it, they state: " The notice says the case is being dismissed because of Swartz's death. Such filings are routine when a defendant dies before trial." - http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/14/us-reddit-aaron-swartz-jstor-mit.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/14/us-reddit... This isn't news and it is standard procedure. Just because Aaron Swartz's name is tied to it means that there shall be page views so why not sensationalize it?
CyberDroiD 14y ago
Wrong #1: It happened, they reported it. It's news! Wrong #2: What else were they going to do? Interesting question, but what does it have to do with your statement regarding newsworthiness? I assume you are trolling hard and fast with your immature post?
- mark-r 14y ago
  Not really, just pointing out the obvious. I was surprised to find it on the front page of HN. Even more surprised to find responses to this comment.

bryanmig 14y ago

Admittedly, I dont know anything about the law but I have a couple of questions: 1) If convicted, would that have set some precedent that could have affected others for years to come? 2) If the "Suggest of Death" papers were filed, does that mean that the courts cannot convict him of any wrong doing, thus preventing any precedent from being set? (Though it sounds like one.. this is not a conspiracy theory.. just a legitimate question)

mpyne 14y ago
Your questions are kind of like asking about what could happen if we could go faster than the speed of light. But in this case I don't think there's much to be gained precedent-wise one way or the other, the applicable laws have been on the books (at least in their basic form) for decades.
vacri 14y ago
Common law holds an individual responsible for their actions, not their families or associates. As such, there is no-one to punish in the event of death, so there is no point in continuing the trial (and no-one to pay for a defense, hence no fair trial is possible). It's why in some areas suicide is not a crime, but attempted suicide is.
jelled 14y ago
Criminal convictions don't carry any binding authority of precedent. Only if some issue of the case were to be appealed, would the ruling on that issue become precedent on courts subject to that appellate jurisdiction. Having said that, a successful conviction could encourage other ambitious AUSAs to bring charges in situations with similar facts.
pseingatl 14y ago
1. Generally speaking, district court criminal cases are non-precedential; i.e., they are not binding on other courts. Sometimes a district court will decide a legal issue that is adopted by a higher court and then becomes precedential. But the more I think about this case, the more it seems to be a political case, and in political cases, the rules are different. In this case, if the Internet reporting is correct, Swartz was only given the option to plead open to the indictment. That is extraordinary. Usually in a non-political case the prosecutor will agree to dismiss most of the counts in exchange for a guilty plea; would recommend a cap or prospective sentence, agree on the amount of the fine, agree not to allocute, etc. Someone wanted Swartz' head on a pike, perhaps for the PACER episode. 2. Yes. Upon the death of the defendant, the case is over. With all respect to Ms. Ortiz, Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Crim. Proc. shouldn't apply in this case. That rule relates to the dismissal of charges before trial. Upon the death of the defendant, the case cannot proceed to trial as there is no longer a case or controversy; there is only one name on the side of the v. and there needs to be a name on each side. This is a simplification, and it may well be a practice in the District of Massachusetts, but it is not the correct procedure (though I may be hypertechnical here). The point is that it wasn't government benevolence that caused them to file, the case was over upon the death of the sole criminal defendant. If there was another party involved, the case can and would proceed, absent a plea.

mindslight 14y ago

I'll drop my personal indictment of USG after it's dead too.

bdcravens 14y ago
What do you have against a building materials company?
- mindslight 14y ago
  Have you never knocked on a drywall wall? Have a sense of permanence and use plaster. Also, it's a bit odd when you find out their second largest market is food additives.
pekk 14y ago
Please let us know in a year how the Civil War is going.
- mindslight 14y ago
  It's not a war, as it's not even really an actionable thing. It's a calmly stated judgment that informs interpretation of events. USG, having become entirely inconsistent with its founding philosophy, the purported highest law of the land, and the People's will, has ceased being a legitimate government by or for the People. It should instead be regarded as an uncontrolled, extremely powerful entity to be avoided at all costs, and hopefully worked around eventually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017141
  - pekk 14y ago
    Who would you like to rule instead?
    - oinksoft 14y ago
      Nobody.

geetarista 14y ago

I think the point is that the charges were dropped ONLY because he passed away. There is no mention of any fault in how he was prosecuted even after all the recent press and outcry from so many people. They just washed their hands of it and moved on.

HalcyonicStorm 14y ago

It's too late to apologize....It's too late

spoiledtechie 14y ago

Can we please actually push for change within our government over this tragic loss. There seems to be a problem, how many more times are we going to allow the justice department to do this to individuals? I hate to compare the notion, but to put it into perspective. Every time I hear of a woman getting raped and the man not being prosecuted because the woman just feels like she shouldn't, I get truly upset. This shows the man, that it was acceptable and he can do it again. How many more times are we going to allow the justice department to push around people of much lesser worth in this world?

tedunangst 14y ago
Every time I hear of a woman getting raped and the man not being prosecuted because the woman just feels like she shouldn't, I get truly upset. So you think the government should continue to prosecute cases even when the victim of the crime claims that no crime occurred?
- spoiledtechie 14y ago
  No, but they should stop overstepping their bounds.
- rauljara 14y ago
  It gets complicated sometimes. What if the mafia have repeatedly extorted money from a shop owner, and the government can prove it but the shop owner doesn't want to press charges because he's worried of what the mafia will do to him? That's not an abstract hypothetical, that's how the mafia traditionally operated. In the case of rape, the traditional defense is to drag the woman's reputation through the mud. Often there is pressure from the woman's place of work, and she really can suffer retaliation if she pursues the case. There aren't really easy answers in these cases, and I don't mean to imply that there are. But a blanket, "don't prosecute unless the victim wants us to" policy provides a lot of incentives for the criminal to engage in victim intimidation.
  - tedunangst 14y ago

nerdfiles 14y ago

Not to sound crass, or maybe I want to sound crass. But this is just looking like a chess game now. As if we couldn't see this kind of thing coming with the way the movie industry portrayed hacking in the 80s and 90s. Public consciousness will, I venture to assert, take this kind of non-news as the new news norm. To the dismay of EFF, Creative Commons, Wikileaks, etc.

babuskov 14y ago

So, they admit pressure was only there to make him commit suicide? Now that he's done it, charges can be dropped?