A gal I grew up got some stupid drug charges when she was 19 and stupid, had a shitty lawyer, and now has a felony record. She is not violent. She’s almost 30, has a bachelor’s degree … and can’t find a job. Because she has a felony. Of course, there is a way to clear her record – but she can’t afford it without a job. Which she can’t get without clearing her record  How convenient!

I love how all you non-felons are like, “NO BIG DEAL, man! No big deal.”

Fucking idiots.

Pretty sure she’s going to be a health care lobbyist at six figures.  What’s the point of selective prosecution if you can’t cash in?

Or maybe she’ll work for the RIAA?  She’d fit right in.

The fact that we have a corruption epidemic throughout the executive, legislative and judicial branches at all levels of government doesn’t magically make corruption ok.  If anything, it makes it worse.  One corrupt prosecutor is a problem, one million corrupt prosecutors is a civilization ending tragedy.

Where do you think you are living?

The failures in some cases, especially fiascos like HSBC laundering money for drug cartels that use human heads as calling cards and getting off with “boys will be boys” essentially means that the law does not exist and is just an illusion.  The government just does whatever it wants.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

Besides which Swartz didn’t actually break the laws he was accused of breaking, the prosecutors were just making stuff up.  If Swartz had dropped a banana peel, they’d have charged him with attempted murder, apparently, based on their “creative” application of other charges.

Actually, America seems to be about ready for Judge Dredd style street judges.  

Or maybe more like Judge Death style street judges.  After all, Judge Death just enforced the law, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time… ssssinnersss…

If the prosecutor will be satisfied by a six month’s sentence if the accused doesn’t contest it, but files charges that carry a much longer sentence if the accused does want his day in court, it means that the additional charges have nothing to do with justice and are purely a negotiating tactic to compel the accused to comply.

This enormous disparity in sentencing also leads to massive perjury because many people will accept the plea bargain and plead guilty even when they are in fact innocent because they don’t want to take the risk of spending decades in prison and facing financial ruin if they go to court. 

This is the system that you’re describing as being “very generous”.

I spoke to a county prosecutor at my daughter’s school who was speaking at a ‘Computer Safety’ lecture for parents.  He gave an example about students texting nude pictures of themselves to each other on cell phones and in the case where one is a minor (16) and one a legal adult (18).  He said that under the law this made both of them guilty of trafficking in child pornography.  His idea of a “good” result was getting together with parents and children, everyone determining that no real harm was done and resolving the issue amicably.  This seemed reasonable to me until he elaborated on how this really worked out.

His version of ‘resolving the issue amicably’ meant that both kids plead guilty to some lesser crime on their permanent record and got probation for a year.  I asked why this amicable resolution had to mean permanent criminal records and probation if all the parties agreed that no harm was done.  He chuckled in a rather patronizing way and said “Well, this way we can keep an eye on them and it makes things easier for us if another situation comes up.”

His attitude scares the hell out of me.  Unless your highest goal in life is to be working a job where you say “Do you want fries with that?”  This kind of thing will follow you around forever.

In an attempt to come to terms with new technology the legislature have added laws that allow prosecutors to tack on charges with multiple years added to sentences simply because the crime involved a computer.  According to this prosecutor he said “These laws are a great tool for us.”

How many things *don’t* involve a computer now?

A lot of what is portrayed as diversion or community justice can look bad as well. If you get told that you can wipe out any record of your arrest for being, say, naked in the PDX airport for 24 hours of community service if you just plead guilty? Most people wouldn’t have the fortitude to take that to trial. They’d just take the community service whether or not they thought they were guilty of a crime.

And sure, it was the prosecutors that drove Aaron to suicide, but, hey, if the material was open access in the first place, this would never have happened! After all, the prosecutors are just low level grunts/orcs/hobgoblins in a worlds where the RIAA/MPPA is Sauron and JSTORE is Saruman.

I say COPYRIGHT killed Aaron Swartz, and (intellectual) property once again proved to be not only theft but MURDER!

If you’re really worried about prosecutorial misconduct I would think you’d take this as a teaching moment rather than a chance to crow about perceived hypocrisy.

Let’s be realistic.  There are thousands or millions of depressed people who do not commit suicide.  Those who do commit suicide do so as a result of some kind of trigger.

In this case, it’s not really hard to see what the trigger is.

But the suicide isn’t really the issue.  The issue is that Ortiz leaned very hard on this case, pushing sentences that simply weren’t proportional to the crime committed.  This is in a case where neither of the aggrieved parties were at all interested in pursuing charges.

This case has “politics” written all over it.  Ortiz was trying to make an example of Swartz.  The use of the law as a political weapon completely undermines the legitimacy of rule of law.  If you’re halfway as concerned about rule of law as you claim to be then you should be pretty upset about Ortiz’s actions as well.

It is important that you understand this. The same argument that you are using is how bullies try to pretend their hands are clean when thier victim commits suicide. In almost all of those cases the victim was depressed (which for bullies and prosecutors, is often a signal to attack). Pretending that the lack of certainty to the cause is a valid reason to not hold someone accountable is among the reasons why this keeps happening.

I have watched Ms. Ortiz and her crew “throw the book” at nearly everyone who comes across the prosecutorial sights of their Boston office. The prison industry should give her some kind of award for sending lots of “residents” their way for stays that would bogle the jaded views of even the most hard-assed “law n’ order” types. 

Let’s not even get into the horror show of the prisons.

It’s not that there are no transgressions of the law, its that the laws themselves are just plain awful. Thank the pinheads in congress for that…another matter. Prosecutorial discretion really boils down to this: do we use every technicality we can to get dangerous criminals off the street…or do we make sure that minor offenses by well-meaning people are treated humanely in a way that serves as a serious warning.

I’d like to say that the US Attorney’s office in Boston just blew it badly here and understands as much. But its really just business as usual for this crew…and that’s why the outrage is quite appropriate.

I cannot believe some people are so incapable of the most basic empathy. The comments on this article have actually made my jaw drop.

I’m all for her having a happy life as a zookeeper or a gardener, we shouldn’t seek to punish people.  But she needs to lose her influence over other human beings until she learns not to abuse it so horribly.