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I have no idea how exactly those kinds of decisions are made, but I feel like the "evidence of good character since then" clause has a decent chance to work here. The whole domain redirection thing he did definitely saved quite a lot of pain for people and businesses worldwide.

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He said on Twitter earlier that a big part of the judge's decision to sentence him to time served was the character letters that a ton of people from the infosec industry that know him sent.

That kind of thing could definitely be relevant for showing good character since his bygone days as a malware creator rather than researcher.

Good character letters sometimes backfire. The judge in the Ross Ulbricht case said that she sentenced him so harshly partly because she got many letters attesting to his good character, so she decided she needed to set a very public example.

I think the difference is probably that in the eyes of the American government, everything Ulbricht did was bad. Whereas Hutchins did some good at some point that could be weighed against the crimes he committed. Character letters don't mean anything if the acts that gave that person their standing in the community are seen as wrong by the court.

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