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Comment by TruthElixirX | Hacker News Reader

I have been a proponent of this since before the Aaron Swartz case. Plea bargains are used because the system would completely grind to a halt otherwise. And it should. The machine eats people's lives.

Never take a plea.

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While perhaps great in theory, that absolute falls apart in practice.

I was accused of a crime, for which the potential punishment would have prevented my being an active father to my soon to be kindergartner. There was a significant chance given the evidence (basically a he said/she said) that taken to trial I would have been found guilty.

Given the probabilities and the risk, the rational decision for me was to take the plea, only to ensure that I could avoid terms that would have interfered with my ability to be a father.

When throwing the book at you is not an idle threat, and the result would effect other people, you quickly realize that you must consider options that are far less idealistic.

Wait, so assuming you were NOT guilty you're saying that because you were about to be a father they managed to bully you into take a plea, so that you could ensure you could avoid terms that would have interfered with your ability to be a father ?

How's this system perpetuated by the persecution any good, in theory OR practice ?

And assuming you WERE guilty, seems like you have gotten off lighter than you were supposed to?

How's this system perpetuated by the persecution any good, in theory OR practice ?

I he meant this is a prisoner's dilemma type situation. It's great if no one takes a plea but if only you don't you are screwed.

Yes, true. It is one. IMHO the plea itself should be illegal. You either have evidence against someone or you improve the tecniques to gather and understand evidence so that in the future sort of situation is more fair.

Instead, we have this plea system where they make your life a bet where you either lose small or lose big. but you lose, whether you were guilty or not.

>(EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is about government employees stealing money the government itself has stolen, and since it’s about theft, it is a crime with a victim, namely those who put money into the parking meters.)

So this is a radical libertarian (or thereabouts) thing.

Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. But it's worth noting that it isn't apolitical.

Saying that the criminal justice system should grind to a halt goes well beyond the radical side of libertarianism.

Well, I took it to mean that the system should grind to a halt with as much bullshit as there is clogging it up, thereby forcing us (as a society) to choose what is really important to prosecute.

E.g., not a guy with a little baggie of weed, or a guy downloading some academic papers he isn't allowed to.

This is exactly what I was trying to say. Millions of dollars shouldn't be spent prosecuting people like Aaron. It is a waste to society in several ways.

Yeah, I am a radical libertarian. I'm not hiding it, but this is an instance where I don't think the point I am trying to make is one that is specifically radically libertarian.

EDIT:: Which isn't to say it isn't radical, but I think several non-libertarian groups who oppose such things as the war on drugs and other victimless crimes would like to see the system grind to a halt and only important cases sought after.

My point was that non-libertarians who oppose those sorts of things probably wouldn't agree that parking meters are theft, and might be turned off by it.

I don't know any Libertarians that would support government employees who have stolen from parking meters. You can disagree with the meters all you want but stealing is stealing.

Yes, we'd all be much better off if the criminal justice system didn't exist.

I don't think he's saying it should stop. If the system becomes log jammed with cases there would be an obvious prioritization and you would see the nonsense we saw with the Schwartz case be a non-issue.

You wish. Here in Uruguay the system is log-jammed, and the result is that a typical case can take decades - ok, the average is three years, but still, you read all the time about cases being closed that took decades to resolve.

That wasn't my point. The point is right now unimportant and victimless issues get a lot of attention. If no one took a plea charges would be dropped except on really heinous acts.

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