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I'm not an attorney, but I would imagine even if Carmen Ortiz were completely at fault she would never admit as much and would never apologize. Why? Because she

I'm not an attorney, but I would imagine even if Carmen Ortiz were completely at fault she would never admit as much and would never apologize. Why? Because she could open herself up to a civil lawsuit. This just speaks so highly of the state of our society. Even if you're at fault taking the moral high ground, owning up and apologizing means you could have the rest of your life ruined. Granted in this context it's a highly sensitive issue as Aaron lost his life, but the fact our culture is so highly litigious makes me sad.

BenoitEssiambre 14y ago
Also, as someone pointed out on the Linus post, Aaron Swartz himself wrote about his prosecutor's behavior: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis
- jacquesm 14y ago
  I read that (interesting piece, I did not know this bit of history) and could not find any references to his prosecutors behavior, could you please point out the reference for me?
  - BenoitEssiambre 14y ago
    From Aaron's Post: "Why did doctors so stubbornly reject Ignaz Semmelweis? Well, imagine being told you were responsible for the deaths of thousands of your patients. That you had been killing the people you were supposed to be protecting. That you were so bad at your job that you were actually worse than just giving birth in the street." Why can't Ortiz admit fault? If her and her department have made it common practice to do heavy handed plea bargaining and getting people to accept disproportionate punishments, like was revealed in Aaron's case then they are guilty of much more injustice than what they did to Aaron. They deny they did anything wrong in the face of evidence that says otherwise because it would make them culpable in a much wider scope. This is the core behavior described in Aaron's post. As a prosecutor, especially a government prosecutor, they shouldn't use every methods a judge lets them get away with when they are clearly unethical and lead away from justice. If this is now business as usual for the DOJ then, like the doctors who didn't wash their hands in Aaron post, they have been guilty of grave misconduct for a while now.
geoka9 14y ago
This just speaks so highly of the state of our society. Even if you're at fault taking the moral high ground, owning up and apologizing means you could have the rest of your life ruined. If she doesn't feel bad about causing the death of Aaron Swarz, she should not apologize. If she feels bad enough that she needs to apologize, I doubt she would worry about being ruined financially ("man, I basically killed this man with my irresponsible actions, how can I live with that?").

BenoitEssiambre 14y ago

Also, as someone pointed out on the Linus post, Aaron Swartz himself wrote about his prosecutor's behavior: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis

jacquesm 14y ago
I read that (interesting piece, I did not know this bit of history) and could not find any references to his prosecutors behavior, could you please point out the reference for me?
- BenoitEssiambre 14y ago
  From Aaron's Post: "Why did doctors so stubbornly reject Ignaz Semmelweis? Well, imagine being told you were responsible for the deaths of thousands of your patients. That you had been killing the people you were supposed to be protecting. That you were so bad at your job that you were actually worse than just giving birth in the street." Why can't Ortiz admit fault? If her and her department have made it common practice to do heavy handed plea bargaining and getting people to accept disproportionate punishments, like was revealed in Aaron's case then they are guilty of much more injustice than what they did to Aaron. They deny they did anything wrong in the face of evidence that says otherwise because it would make them culpable in a much wider scope. This is the core behavior described in Aaron's post. As a prosecutor, especially a government prosecutor, they shouldn't use every methods a judge lets them get away with when they are clearly unethical and lead away from justice. If this is now business as usual for the DOJ then, like the doctors who didn't wash their hands in Aaron post, they have been guilty of grave misconduct for a while now.

geoka9 14y ago

This just speaks so highly of the state of our society. Even if you're at fault taking the moral high ground, owning up and apologizing means you could have the rest of your life ruined. If she doesn't feel bad about causing the death of Aaron Swarz, she should not apologize. If she feels bad enough that she needs to apologize, I doubt she would worry about being ruined financially ("man, I basically killed this man with my irresponsible actions, how can I live with that?").