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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

I am not surprised this guy is doing this, the coverage has been almost universally favoring Aaron's story and positioning the prosecutor as the bad guy (or gal). Stories like this sort of take on their own narrative once they get going, and a lot of folks are using this as an exemplar to curb abusive prosecution.

I am surprised however that the husband thinks anyone cares what was offered. That suggests he really missed the root of the anger completely (which is as far as I can ascertain egregious prosecution by copyright interests and their lapdogs regardless of human cost or mandate) The only thing that would make people sit back and go "Huh?" was if we found out the Justice Department had dropped the charges weeks before Aaron's suicide.

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I believe it's because for most people who read the case, there's so much mud in the water, the first impression one receives of the case, is that Aaron was facing 35 years in prison, and 1 million dollar fine.

Especially non USA-natives who have no idea how the juridical system there works, for the first few days, I actually believed the above, that if found guilty he would face that sentence, I had no idea how plea bargains works there, it's been a frustrating experience to say the least.

The million fine is effectively an underestimate when the average cost of defending yourself is $1.5 million. And to avoid prejudicing the judge, Aaron was unable to say how bad his problems were, which made asking for assistance hard. Kind of makes a mockery of "the right to a lawyer".

Being a convicted felon is no walk in the park either. That shows up on every job application you submit, and makes it much harder to find jobs for the rest of your life. (Which is something Aaron would have faced, because he'd exhausted his financial resources.)

Im sure having a felony conviction would be terrible for your ordinary person, but with Aaron's resume and public presence I dont think it would be hard for him to find work.

Some felony convictions more than others, having a felony embezzlement conviction for example would certainly make it hard to get a job in accounting. Stock traders who have been convicted of fraud often find it hard to get jobs on Wall Street. But I agree with you that a felony copyright conviction on Aaron's record would probably not be a barrier to him working in a technical capacity.

Positioning? They are a "bad guy."

The Justice Department is not intrinsically evil, they are the antagonist in this story though.

Understand that Aaron's story is a classic Greek Tragedy, I'm sure that at this very moment some playwright/screenwriter is putting together a treatment of the form:

Act I: The boundless potential of unlimited talent in youth

Act II: The conflict of passion and righteousness over the injustice of broken copyright law. Climaxing in the arrest.

Act III: The pain of our hero being buried under a system too inured to the reality of the situation to distract it from its mission, and Aaron's death.

It has Oscar/Pulitzer written all over it. And if it can move the nation to change, like the novel To Kill a Mockingbird did, then Aaron's death won't be in vain.

The Justice Department is in the role of bad guy/antagonist in this play. They were the unwilling heroes in the antitrust action against Microsoft, and the before that the enforcement of civil rights laws. So they are equally capable of being 'put' in either role.

The only problem with your view is that the prosecutor has a wide degree of personal choice about how viciously to prosecute, and thus bears moral responsibility. It's the same as a soldier who chooses where to aim his gun -- there are moral choices of where to point it and immoral choices. In this case, the prosecutor made an immoral choice.

So this is not about "The Justice Department", it's about a person in a position of power, who abused that power.

To be explicitly precise, the attorney in this case was doing her job. No more, no less. To rise to the level of abuse of power would require that she pursue a case that she could not win, or to withhold information needed for a proper defense, Etc.

I don't defend her actions, but neither do I presume to know her intentions. I do not imagine her cackling with glee at this outcome. Vilifying her, as an individual doing her job, is not warranted. That leaves the organization which gave her that job and ordered her to do it.

It is by that reasoning that I do believe it is about the "Justice Department" and not a particular prosecuting attorney within the department.

Doing her job? Please see the movie "Judgement at Nuremberg" regarding "I was just doing my job". Seriously, see this movie.

And, "no less"? On the contrary, all prosecutors do substantially less. They don't actually apply the law most of the time, if they did, we'd probably all be in prison. See this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...

Wow. If you seriously believe that the suicide of a mentally unstable defendant in a criminal trial, imputes the same level of human rights abuse as racial genocide then I really won't be able to change your mind.

Wow. If you can't discern a principle when shown something of a different degree, then I really think you're a complete idiot.

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