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Comment by greghinch | Hacker News Reader

To all the people who are towing the "this was inappropriate/unsafe behavior and she deserves her punishment" line, fine, but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting. Expulsion and 2 felony counts is ridiculous. Ruining a young girls life because of a mistake in which no one was hurt, whether she should have known or not, is not the answer.

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To put this in perspective, she's charged with possessing and discharging a weapon on school property. That is a class 3 felony in Florida, if she is tried as an adult then she could receive up to 5 years in prison. Compare that to the Steubenville rapists who received sentences of one to two years. And here nobody was harmed nor was there even a high likelihood of anyone being harmed. It's just ridiculous.

I also think that the charges here are too severe, and the Steubenville rape sentences were too light. But they are not comparable. The rapists could have received far more than two years and Kiera Wilmot will probably receive less than five.

Even a day would be an absolute travesty of justice for this. She's getting the book thrown at her, not for reasons of safety, or education, but simply because the book exists to be thrown.

Yes, she did something stupid. But if stupidity were a crime, we'd all be doing time. I can't see how society would be safer... Or better off, by destroying this woman's future.

This is a great way to put it. I agree, this is only happening because administrators see a way to use their "book."

Disclaimer: the same thing happened to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5637272

She's being charged with essentially the same crime as entering a school with a loaded gun and shooting inside the school. The fact that jail time is even on the table is a problem, even if she is likely to receive less jail time than convicted rapists (isn't that comforting?)

"probably receive less than five"

In a UK school that would be 'probably less than five minutes in the head teacher's study being told off'

I'm sure a proper telling off could go as long as 20 minutes with a probable preamble of the student standing in front of the head teacher's desk in silence for a good five minutes while the head teacher collects his/her thoughts, but that would be the end of it.

Yes, true. And in these days of 'safeguarding' there might be half a day suspension or Mum might be phoned.

As an outsider viewing this kind of thing in the US from the media (like the wrong end of a telescope) it seems as if there is a huge legal machine that just crushes away irrespective of the need and actual severity of the case. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. "Zero tolerance" swept the land and there is precious little the average person can do to change how schools work. Running for school board requires a commitment that most people cannot accept (need to feed the family).

This whole thing is pretty much why I support parents picking the school the kids go to with the money following that choice. It is really the only way that parents will be heard.

It's not fair to compare to the rapists because they were severely under-penalized. You can't say person x deserves a lesser sentence than person y, because person y's crime is more heinous. Person y may have gotten off easier than they deserved.

But yeah, 5 years for a toilet cleaner bomb is nuts. You can say that.

That sort of logic is what allows our flawed judicial system to continue with arbitrary and/or discriminatory sentencing. Yes, the Steubenville Rapists were under-penalized. And yes, this student was over-penalized.

To me, this seems like both data points illustrate the lack of true equality under the law (in the United States, at the very least).

Guns and bombs threaten the state monopoly on power, violence and punishment.

Rapes not so much.

The body of law (and the sentences it produces) move in a direction that may meander and have inertia, but is ultimately predictable.

Guns and bombs threaten the state monopoly on power, violence and punishment

And this is a good thing as long as citizens have control of the state. In fact, it's one of the chief functions of the state.

It's when citizens get lazy and allow themselves to be manipulated that this goes bad.

But here there's another irony. The state is crying about a personnel shortage in STEM, yet simultaneously threatening ridiculous punishment for the very same characteristics that lead to excellence in STEM.

The irony is sickening.

In middle school, I brought firecrackers to school and set them off deliberately in some other kids locker. There was no scientific motive or youthful curiosity. It was pure mischeif.

My punishment? I was suspended for a half day. And get this: I learned my lesson.

The school's reaction is truly ridiculous. I remember telling my grandfather about the explosives my friends and I would make when I was ~13/14. He responded with "You ever see what happens when you mix sodium and water? There's that, then there's magnesium...haha my science teacher wasn't too happy about that explosion." (It's hard to convey his jolly "ah good times" tone with just text)

Sure, I wasn't around but it sure seems like people were way less of a tightass back then. I got threatened with a lawsuit because I remotely controlled a teacher's computer. Just a prank!

My friend and I wanted to test out Final Cut Pro on his new Mac, so we made a little action short which included kicking a stuffed model of myself (half a day's work and a LOT of duct tape) off the school roof. Again, 15-year-olds threatened with a lawsuit for trespassing (I was under the impression my parents paid their state taxes?) A constructive activity is punished while drug deals go down in the guys' bathroom unnoticed.

> but at most a suspension from school would seem fitting.

Yes. Asking her to write an essay about the chemistry of what she did, and another one about why people respond so poorly to this kind of experimentation, would have both "punished" her, and taught her valuable lessons, and not risked destroying her life.

What if someone was hurt by this incident? How would this change your outlook on the situation?

Yes.

"What if" is a pretty silly game to play, as the possibilities are infinite. That being said, the punishment would be more severe. We even have a crime called "manslaughter" for accidental deaths.

But no one was hurt. And she's being treated like a potential terrorist.

You're being ridiculous. What if she brought a nuclear bomb to school? What then?

As far as this specific case. Even if she had held the "bomb" next to another student's face the likelihood of any significant injury would be low. People have held dry ice bombs and draino bombs in their hands as they have gone off with the only consequence being momentary pain and perhaps some bruising. People get hurt worse playing school sports.

And in this case nobody was hurt, not even a little.

> People have held dry ice bombs and draino bombs in their hands as they have gone off

Drano contains sodium hydroxide. (Different amounts in different drano products.) Sodium hydroxide is really fucking nasty.

A chemical burn from sodium hydroxide is difficult to irrigate. Chemical burns need to be treated by a hospital. They may need skin grafts.

So, when making a "drano bottle-popper"[1] please please wear nitrile gloves.

I agree that it's ridiculous to call the police; charge her with a crime; try her as an adult on federal charges; try her for a crime that carries any kind of prison sentence. Any punishment should have been kept in school.

[1] Perhaps we need to define bomb a bit better. This reaction is just creating steam?

Please note it was not drano, it was HCl based toilet cleaner. The reaction of HCl and Al results in hydrogen gas and aluminum chloride salt.

Ah, thanks for the correction.

Then you respond as though someone was hurt. But since no one was, don't. Letting the law react to things that haven't happened as though they did creeping terror. Not to say no lesson is learned, but the damage is clearly reversible, since _none happened_.

You don't need to ruin someone's life to learn them some respect for safety.

Um, if the situation where different, then intelligent people would respond differently. This has do do with the definitions of "different" and "intelligent".

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