4 ms·

There is one detail: she never added, in public, "I'm seeking X years". She always kept talking about the maximum penalty. The ball is in her court and Linus is

by pacala 14y ago

There is one detail: she never added, in public, "I'm seeking X years". She always kept talking about the maximum penalty. The ball is in her court and Linus is right to call her backpedaling a lie.

Xylakant 14y ago
I would not expect a prosecutor to talk about the sentence she seeks before the actual court hearing. And we don't know at all what was discussed in the plea bargainings. So no - no lie. Not here. Coming from a different legal system (germany) I find the way prosecution and plea bargaining works in the states scary, but calling the prosecutor a liar when she works in the common framework is not helpful. It just undermines your cause by opening you up to an unrelated argument about semantics that you'll probably loose. Stick with the facts, argue against plea bargaining and pressure tactics in the legal system. Argue against the fact that to prevail in court, you need massive funding, that justice can effectively bought. Don't get caught up in false arguments about whether Ortiz technically lied or not.
- pacala 14y ago
  The core issue is that the system relies on bargaining instead of truth. But we can't make judgements of the system in abstract. The system is the sum of the actions of its participants. In that sense, it is perfectly fine to call out individual actions "lies", even if they perfectly fit the system. That only illustrates the absurdity of the system. Back to the facts: Carmen Ortiz (participant in the system) placed an upper bound of 35 years. She never placed any other gravity quantification in public on the record. All that is on the record is that she thought that the crimes are in the 35 years gravity class. Coming back and saying "I really meant 6 months" is a a contradiction of on the record facts, aka a lie.
  - Xylakant 14y ago
    Back to the facts: Carmen Ortiz thought she could make multiple counts of wire fraud, unauthorized access to computer systems and some other charges stick. Each of those charges carries by law a maximum sentence. The 35 years that get handed around is the sum of all those maximum sentences. I so far haven't seen a public statement that says "I, Carmen Ortiz think that the appropriate sentence for the case at hand is 35 years." There is no contradiction here.
- cdash 14y ago
  The common framework is to extort people into taking a plea bargain by threatening them with huge prison sentences by throwing every single felony they can think of at them. When you threaten someone you have to be willing to back up your threat if they call you on it or it wont work in the future, so I am not really seeing how this makes her not a liar.

by pacala 14y ago

There is one detail: she never added, in public, "I'm seeking X years". She always kept talking about the maximum penalty. The ball is in her court and Linus is right to call her backpedaling a lie.

Xylakant 14y ago

I would not expect a prosecutor to talk about the sentence she seeks before the actual court hearing. And we don't know at all what was discussed in the plea bargainings. So no - no lie. Not here. Coming from a different legal system (germany) I find the way prosecution and plea bargaining works in the states scary, but calling the prosecutor a liar when she works in the common framework is not helpful. It just undermines your cause by opening you up to an unrelated argument about semantics that you'll probably loose. Stick with the facts, argue against plea bargaining and pressure tactics in the legal system. Argue against the fact that to prevail in court, you need massive funding, that justice can effectively bought. Don't get caught up in false arguments about whether Ortiz technically lied or not.

pacala 14y ago
The core issue is that the system relies on bargaining instead of truth. But we can't make judgements of the system in abstract. The system is the sum of the actions of its participants. In that sense, it is perfectly fine to call out individual actions "lies", even if they perfectly fit the system. That only illustrates the absurdity of the system. Back to the facts: Carmen Ortiz (participant in the system) placed an upper bound of 35 years. She never placed any other gravity quantification in public on the record. All that is on the record is that she thought that the crimes are in the 35 years gravity class. Coming back and saying "I really meant 6 months" is a a contradiction of on the record facts, aka a lie.
- Xylakant 14y ago
  Back to the facts: Carmen Ortiz thought she could make multiple counts of wire fraud, unauthorized access to computer systems and some other charges stick. Each of those charges carries by law a maximum sentence. The 35 years that get handed around is the sum of all those maximum sentences. I so far haven't seen a public statement that says "I, Carmen Ortiz think that the appropriate sentence for the case at hand is 35 years." There is no contradiction here.
cdash 14y ago
The common framework is to extort people into taking a plea bargain by threatening them with huge prison sentences by throwing every single felony they can think of at them. When you threaten someone you have to be willing to back up your threat if they call you on it or it wont work in the future, so I am not really seeing how this makes her not a liar.