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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> The first one is that if someone is suicidal and they commit a crime, you can't decide not to prosecute them simply because they may kill themselves.

When a suicidal criminal is caught you do need to prosecute them. That means that you need to keep them alive to be able to prosecute them. Justice is not served when suspects kill themselves. We still don't know whether what he did was a crime or not.

When no person is harmed, and there has been no physical damage, (but with some kind of monetary loss due to shutting off a connection) it's absurd to suggest that 35 / 50 years in prison is a suitable punishment. It's absurd to suggest that any time in prison is a suitable punishment. Note that this applies even if the suspect is not suicidal.

Using these kind of plea-bargaining tactics when you know the suspect is suicidal is cruel.

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First off, like pretty much every one else here I think Aaron shouldn't have been prosecuted in the first place.

> Using these kind of plea-bargaining tactics when you know the suspect is suicidal is cruel.

If your point is that you should prosecute someone who is suicidal differently from someone who is not, wrt prosecuting them then I'd strongly disagree.

If you do prosecute them less severely then where is the line? What about pregnant women, stress can cause miscarriges. what about old people, stress can cause them to have heart attacks What about overweight people, stress can cause them to die from a heart attack.

What if someone is faking being suicidal? You can never know for sure until they actually die, if they attempt suicide and survive then it might just be a hoax to get out of prosecution.

I think the world is better served when everyone knows they will be treated equally.

"If your point is that you should prosecute someone who is suicidal differently from someone who is not, wrt prosecuting them then I'd strongly disagree. ... What about pregnant women, stress can cause miscarriges"

Thinks like this make me think that some is really rotten in this system. Some people think that is justified, fair and right to menace the life of an innocent baby if you got the robber mother in jail?.

There is really a need to say that this idea is a monstrosity?

Should be noted that the system is _obliged_ to care for the life of this baby?

"What if someone is faking being suicidal?"

Absolutely nothing

Is not so easy to fake this for much time... in the end this man or woman will reach the same place in front of a jury, but anyways is a better choice that the other option, that you _help_ to someone to be a suicidal.

It really sounds like your trolling me but i'll bite...

> Thinks like this make me think that some is really rotten in this system. Some people think that is justified, fair and right to menace the life of an innocent baby if you got the robber mother in jail?. There is really a need to say that this idea is a monstrosity?

Being pregnant should not, under any circumstances, give you a get out of jail free card.

I can't believe I even have to state this and I have a hard time believing that you actually think this should be the case.

> Is not so easy to fake this for much time... in the end this man or woman will reach the same place in front of a jury, but anyways is a better choice that the other option, that you _help_ to someone to be a suicidal.

I can't parse this into a coherent sentence. I'm guessing english isn't your first language. No harm done, i'll move on.

not trolling intended, seriously

> Being pregnant should not, under any circumstances, give you a get out of jail free card.

Of course, but this is not what i'm saying...

You can't wait, let's see,... six months?, eight months? You can't wait a year until the baby is born and someone can care or him? You really need to put this pregnant woman in jail Just Right Now?

Even if the proccess could be so stressful for the mother that the life of the foetus could be in danger?

It's not the prosecutor's job to decide if the law is just or if the punishment is commensurate. The prosecutor's job is to prosecute. Unfortunately, a primary tool in that job seems to be plea-bargaining. I hope that some change in the way plea-bargaining is used comes from this tragedy, but it's disingenuous to get upset when that reform fails to arise from the very people who rely on abusing that tool to do their job and who in principle have no particular say in how the law is written or interpreted.

I think the best change in plea-bargaining is if a bargain was offered and rejected, then the prosecutor has to win on all counts, and get the full penalty asked for, or get nothing at all. It is very likely that not all 19 counts would have come back guilty, so in a case like this there would be incentive on the prosecution side to only push as far as is likely to be won. And, I think this has some merit in the same spirit as the double jeopardy section of the 5'th.

No prosecutor would ever offer a plea bargain in that situation. If they were 100% of a full conviction why would they bargain?

Many plea bargains would be offered in those situations. What the parent is suggesting is that the jury has to come back with "fully guilty of all charges" in which case the person gets all the appropriate time, or "not fully guilty of all charges" in which case the person is ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES. This would provide a powerful incentive to not stack many multiple charges on solely for intimidation, even if they're completely irrelevant.

> It's not the prosecutor's job to decide if the law is just or if the punishment is commensurate. The prosecutor's job is to prosecute.

> Unfortunately, a primary tool in that job seems to be plea-bargaining.

I cannot reconcile those statements. If a prosecutor's job is to prosecute then they should charge with crimes, and say what the maximum sentences might be, and go to court. But they clearly think that part of their job is to adjust the sentence to be commensurate.

Plea bargaining is like any other negotiation. It's a poor strategy to admit you're in a bad position when you can instead make it sound like you're taking pity on the other party.

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