5 ms·

And the average cost of defending one of these is $1.5 million, which is money Aaron did not have and could not raise. I thought that justice system was requir

by Osiris 14y ago

And the average cost of defending one of these is $1.5 million, which is money Aaron did not have and could not raise. I thought that justice system was required to provide an attorney in the case that a defendant didn't have the means by which to procure their own representation? Is your comment only to suggest that a public defender wouldn't be capable of properly defending Aaron and thus he would need to pay for his own lawyer? If that's the case, then there is really something seriously wrong with our system if the inability to pay a lawyer basically condemns you to being guilty (or pleading) while the rich and defend themselves with teams of the best.

btilly 14y ago
I pulled the $1.5 million figure from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz/. The justice system is required to provide an attorney if you can't get your own. However if you look at http://www.innocenceproject.org/ http://www.innocenceproject.org/ you'll find that incompetent representation is one of the major causes of innocent people losing these cases. Furthermore in Aaron's case he's being charged under a fairly specialized part of the law, so his odds with a generic defense lawyer against a prosecutor who has specialized in computer crimes would be very poor. And yes, there is a lot seriously wrong with our system.
- pacala 14y ago
  Given how the rest of the society works, I'd be not surprised that "incompetent" really means "poorly connected" and that the whole system is just a $1.5 million racket to get a "well connected" lawyer to grease your case.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    No, in this case, incompetent means "incompetent." Public defenders are often inexperienced and overworked, and are notorious for advising their clients to accept plea bargains rather than go to trial.
    - atirip 14y ago
      Then you are really are fucked indeed. As an example here (Estonia) state pointed lawyers are choosen from reputable offices only, and they are forced to do that.
- glurgh 14y ago
  The cases the Innocence Project deals with are invariably state cases, the quality of federal public defenders is significantly higher.
dthunt 14y ago
The only good that has come out of this horrible episode is that more people are finally starting to understand the problems of CFAA and with the unbalanced situation in federal cases.

by Osiris 14y ago

btilly 14y ago

I pulled the $1.5 million figure from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz/. The justice system is required to provide an attorney if you can't get your own. However if you look at http://www.innocenceproject.org/ http://www.innocenceproject.org/ you'll find that incompetent representation is one of the major causes of innocent people losing these cases. Furthermore in Aaron's case he's being charged under a fairly specialized part of the law, so his odds with a generic defense lawyer against a prosecutor who has specialized in computer crimes would be very poor. And yes, there is a lot seriously wrong with our system.

pacala 14y ago
Given how the rest of the society works, I'd be not surprised that "incompetent" really means "poorly connected" and that the whole system is just a $1.5 million racket to get a "well connected" lawyer to grease your case.
- betterunix 14y ago
  No, in this case, incompetent means "incompetent." Public defenders are often inexperienced and overworked, and are notorious for advising their clients to accept plea bargains rather than go to trial.
  - atirip 14y ago
    Then you are really are fucked indeed. As an example here (Estonia) state pointed lawyers are choosen from reputable offices only, and they are forced to do that.
glurgh 14y ago
The cases the Innocence Project deals with are invariably state cases, the quality of federal public defenders is significantly higher.

dthunt 14y ago

The only good that has come out of this horrible episode is that more people are finally starting to understand the problems of CFAA and with the unbalanced situation in federal cases.