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Comment by dustin | Hacker News Reader

For all the posts saying Linus is wrong, which he may well be technically, consider this from a layman's perspective.

Ortiz recently: "At no time did this office ever seek ... maximum penalties under the law."

Justice.gov previously: "SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison..."

At a minimum it's a bad PR screw-up on their part and they're backpedaling because their "make us look tough" press releases have backfired.

Most people vaguely familiar with the case would think there is a threat of a 35 year sentence, as many recent posts on HN indicate. Would Aaron & his legal team think so too? Probably not.

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Even outside of legalese, words have meaning.

Saying in a press release that Mr. Swartz "faces up to 35 years in prison" is not the same as actively seeking the maximum penalty. It's likely that the original press release was meant to add credibility to the prosecution, in the eyes of the general public -- to highlight that, in view of the law, what the defendant was charged with was no small matter.

I really don't see how those two statements are contradictory (much less a "lie")

- the defendant is charged with crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 35 years

- the prosecution offers a deal of 4-6 months

This whole affair is an immense tragedy but comments such as this one from Linus add an element of farce that it really doesn't need.

Indeed words have a meaning. If you issue a statement that "the defendant is charged with crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 35 years", then you inherently quantify the gravity of the defendant acts as a 35 year jail time crime. If, instead, you issue a statement that "we are seeking to put the defendant in jail for 6 months", then you quantify the gravity of the defendant acts as a 6 months jail time crime. These are not nearly the same and Carmen Ortiz never issued the second statement in public on the record.

We may further argue that this is how "everybody does this" and "she can't weaken her bargaining hand". To me, a justice system that depends on bargaining instead of truth feels fundamentally wrong. That is the deep issue at stake, and not the political fortunes of one Carmen Ortiz.

Consider an analogy. When we reason about the performance of algorithms, it's important to know both the worst case performance and the typical case. They're two separate bits of information.

Where is the on the record typical case statement? I haven't seen one yet.

"Yes, that's a wonderful family you have there.

Shame if anything, you know, were to happen to it."

That is how this whole wording of 2011 comes across to me.

That might be true if it wasn't for the fact that every. single. set. of charges files gets a similarly-worded press release. "So and so was charged with violations of foo, bar, and baz today, if convicted on these charges he faces a fine of up to $X00,000 and Y years in prison".

You forget a few further steps:

- the defendant is charged with crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 35 years

- the prosecution offers a deal of 4-6 months (plus no-computer etc etc)

- the defendant refuses

- the prosecution files another 9 charges to push the maximum up to 50 years

- the prosecution signals that a plea bargain now will likely carry around 7 years

- the defendant kills himself

- the prosecution says "but we always offered 6 months!"

Nope, no lie at all there, nossah.

Do you think releasing a press release of 35 years possible imprisonment for such a petty crime (if you consider this a crime at all) is a correct act?

Please do not give standard practice bullshit.

If its standard practice, someone has to change it, who else will identify and change it if it not for people like in her position.

Agreed, unfortunately this is a legal case and it probably won't be judged from a layman's perspective. That doesn't make it any less bad but it does give Ortiz some wiggle room and it will no doubt be used to salvage what they can from this situation. The conversation should therefore not revolve around legal technicalities but around morality and around systemic issues. If this is 'technically correct' then there is an even bigger problem than if this is just (and I use that word knowing full well this is no small matter) about Aaron.

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