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Comment by asdadasdgasfa | Hacker News Reader

http://ia601205.us.archive.org/25/items/UsaV.AaronSwartz-Cri...

"Promises, rewards, or inducements have been given to witness Erin Quinn Norton. Copies of the letter agreement with her and order of immunity with respect to her grand jury testimony are disclosed on Disk 3."

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Note that this does not necessarily imply that she sold her friend out. Prosecutors commonly grant immunity in grand jury cases whether or not the witness asked for or wanted it, because it deprives him of the legal basis for invoking the Fifth Amendment. Testimony can then be compelled under threat of contempt.

If this sounds shady, that's because it is.

The immunity grant needed to compel testimony is also fairly limited. All they have to grant is immunity from the specific compelled statements (and evidence derived from them) being used against the witness in court; that was decided in a 1972 case [1]. The U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning was that, since the 5th amendment only protects withholding statements that might be incriminating, a grant of immunity relating only to those specific statements is sufficient to make compelling them constitutional, because they then can no longer function to legally incriminate. The government can still prosecute the compelled witness in the same case, if they have other evidence.

[1] An old law-review article on the case: http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11...

Compelling testimony isn't "shady". Besides, the defense has the power to compel testimony as well. It's in the Constitution.

Call it what you like--this interpretation of the Fifth Amendment seems about as much in line with what the framers intended as the supposed right of every man, woman and child in our well regulated militia to own an AR15.

I was talking about Sixth Amendment, which explicitly gives the defense the power to compel witnesses:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

The subpoena ad testificandum, the process by which the prosecution may compel witnesses, is a feature of the English common law that was well familiar to the founders. Its use in the United States comes directly from English precedent.

If anybody ever decide to do that to you, just play dumb and arrogant. The jury won't believe you and your enemy will lose.

Also, it's really nice to have a bad memory. Conveniently, bad memory, scared, defensive/arrogant, and combative is pretty much how I'd feel in front of a federal court anyway, so it wouldn't be "playing".

I'm not really a fan of Norton's journalism, but the insinuation you've made here is execrable. You're a typical American, criticizing a victim of our judicial process rather than the evil prosecutors who distort it for their own gain.

So... you're responding to an attack against the character of a single individual, with an attack against the character of all Americans. Smooth.

This is a tragedy, and how people view this will vary widely, there is no need kneejerk hate-filled ignorance, even if it does make you feel better.

I'm an American myself. Unlike you, I've been paying attention.

I just read that entire indictment. I do not find the quote about Norton that you just posted anywhere in the document. There is, in fact, no mention of Norton whatsoever. Do you have some other source for that quote? Because it very much appears that you just created a throwaway account to post this.

I don't really understand the quote. What does it mean/imply?

It would imply that she was called in front of a grand jury to testify against Aaron Swartz. I presume she initially refused to do so on the grounds that it might incriminate her - as is her right under the Fifth Amendment. Therefore the government gave her a letter of immunity, something they can do without her permission. Once she was immune to prosecution, the government could compel her testimony.

I assume she didn't want to go to jail (she does have a daughter, after all), so she testified. I can't say I'd hold that against her. You have very little rights in front of a grand jury.

This is the only thing I've found, thus far: https://twitter.com/textfiles/statuses/137387291617394688

A google for that exact phrase shows this: http://gnusha.org/logs/2012-09-15.log

I don't know enough about the case to dig further.

I originally found that in one of the legal docs, here:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Aaron+Swart...

http://archive.org/stream/UsaV.AaronSwartz-CriminalDocument2...

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