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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

There was a big long thread about this yesterday. Also, it's not cool to go into a preemptive sweary rant on your own submission.

Finally HN guidelines are that you should be selective about the quality of your submission; 'topinfopost.com' is a news aggregator (bad) that's chock full of conspiracy theories (worse). Other front page store is include photographs of ghosts and that the civil war in Syria is a Zionist plot. Seriously? This is your idea of a reliable news source? Stop wasting our time with this bullshit. The maximum penalty for vandalism in California (which is what this case is about) is 3 years. It isn't possible to get a 13 year sentence for vandalism in California. In fact, since the defendant has no previous convictions for vandalism that I'm aware of I'm pretty sure the maximum penalty that can be imposed under CA law (CA PC 640.5/6) is community service and a $1000 fine.

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>There was a big long thread about this yesterday. Also, it's not cool to go into a preemptive sweary rant on your own submission.

Says who? Because, if anything, HN users seem to agreed with and voted for my comment (or "rant").

>Finally HN guidelines are that you should be selective about the quality of your submission; 'topinfopost.com' is a news aggregator (bad) that's chock full of conspiracy theories (worse). Other front page store is include photographs of ghosts and that the civil war in Syria is a Zionist plot. Seriously? This is your idea of a reliable news source?

I don't follow topinfopost, and could not care less what else it has on it, as long as the story I submitted is OK. Which is. You can corroborate it in other, no conspiracy outlets.

Not to mention that some of the very same issues emerged in the well known Aaron Swartz case -- and your arguments here are so generic that they also trivialise that instance of prosecutorial abuse.

>Stop wasting our time with this bullshit. The maximum penalty for vandalism in California (which is what this case is about) is 3 years. It isn't possible to get a 13 year sentence for vandalism in California.

Which is beside the point. You shouldn't be threatened with outrageous charges in the first place, no matter what you will actually get.

You shouldn't be threatened with outrageous charges

He isn't being threatened with outrageous charges. There is a law against graffiti [1], the prosecutor claims to have evidence that he broke it repeatedly, and he's being charged with that.

What are you outraged about? That he's being charged for writing it on the sidewalk? Sorry, in CA the sidewalk is considered the property of the building owner, who is also responsible for its upkeep. That he wrote it in chalk? chalk still needs cleaning up, but since the effort involved in down that is actually trivial his sentence will be adjusted accordingly. That he is being charged with 13 counts? Well it seems he went and wrote his messages critical of the bank at least that many times during a 6 month period.

Is it bad that the prosecutor is wasting time on what is essentially a frivolous case? Yes. Is there any risk the guy is actually going to jail for 13 years? No.

1. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&gr...

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