Devastation was already running rampant in this situation.

As a stranger who's never known Aaron and who's only just read about what he's done in this world, I can say I'm somewhat devastated as well.

You're blaming Aaron for taking the supposedly cowardly approach and hurting his friends and family in the process, but what about the people who put him in this position? Are they beyond reproach? What about the people who affected those people? Clearly something fucked up along the way because I don't think Aaron deserved to be in a position where he had to do this because he downloaded bytes from a website.

I've always found that position extremely selfish. If it wasn't for families and friends being devastated killing yourself would probably not seem like a big deal to many. The fact that it affects the ones you love so much is the very reason for why many that contemplates suicide goes through unimaginable suffering just to save it from others - it is a huge sacrifice, one that a typical person would never, ever, in their entire life even come close to experiencing. And if it just doesn't work out people have the stomach to call it selfish.

Someone described the process in which a depressed person takes his/her life with a person standing in the window of a burning building choosing between burning to death and jumping to death. It can basically be the very same thing.

And to a certain degree, jumping just makes your problems disappear - just like that. But saying that the person jumping is selfish because he/she didn't contemplate the consequences? Do you honestly believe that killing yourself is something that people take lightly? That it didn't occur to them that they would be missed? Think. That point of view makes me sick and expressing it makes you extremely selfish in my eyes.

Holy crap, stop being such an asshole. On the off chance you're "just playing the devil's advocate": it's time to quit, now. You can't possibly believe that Aaron deserved in any way what was coming to him. It also stretches the imagination that you actually think lawyers are in any way protecting the innocent. Your opinion on depression is likewise both immature and disgusting in its callousness. You should really be challenged for these beliefs if they are indeed your own.

As a society we do agree to follow the law and punish those who break them. But remember that the law of the land is not some God given set of laws. Several people broke segregation laws during the civil rights movement and in my view they should not have paid up (I think you may also agree with this). Turing paid up because he broke the law but now I guess there is almost unanimous consent that him paying up was not the right outcome. So paying up for breaking the law is not as black and white as it sometimes seems. Lets reserve our judgements for some time.

Edit : Also as Udo points out lets stop this line of argument for a bit. Some members of the community either knew Aaron or were affected by his work, lets not subject them to this argument right now.

Even if you're innocent, and even if you ultimately win, a federal prosecution can utterly wreck your life.

I don't think anyone disputes that Aaron was probably not in the best of mental health to be facing this kind of thing in the first place, but even for a paragon of stability, a multi-year witchhunt and prosecution by the feds will push you to the limit. I know of a few people who have been in the eye AUSA doom (and some ongoing, like Harborside Health Center), and especially for an individual defendant vs. a group, it's very hard.