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Prosecutor as bully

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Re: Prosecutor as bully

#131

Post by jlgreco »

ceol wrote: post #117
temphn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

I wasn't personally familiar with Aaron, but from what I've read of him, I really don't think he was the type of person who would want everyone to go on a witch hunt the day it's announced he's committed suicide. So how about you save your emotionally charged call for an internet brigade until everything has settled down, yes?

That may be true, that may not be true. I don't know.

What I do know is that the issue is larger than Aaron himself.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#132

Post by Daniel_Newby »

temphn wrote: post #46
agwa wrote: post #18

From the article: For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. Remember, this was on HN just a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

> Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, ...

This is Timothy McVeigh thinking, and it makes you a loser just like it did to McVeigh. You can never kill or destroy enough people to defeat Washington, D.C.

To win you have to think like Osama bin Laden: turn the system against itself. Wholesale, not retail. Scale up, not one off. TSA, not EFF.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#133

Post by btilly »

dmix wrote: post #54
temphn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naming and shaming Carmen M. Ortiz for destroying the life of a young man is exactly what is necessary. She brought 13 felony counts against him for downloading articles that should be freely available, after JSTOR itself had dropped the charges. Destroying her career and seeing her fired in disgrace will send a message to all other overzealous prosecutors, in the same way that she surely thought her prosecution of S…

How do we go about getting this message across to her and other key people (legally)? I'm interested in helping.

My suggestion, start a whitehouse petition. If that gets to 25k people, the whitehouse will respond. If Reddit gets involved, 25k people is quite doable.

The wording of the petition should be as strong as possible. I'm off with my children now, but if I get back tonight and I see a decent petition on this, I will definitely sign it.

Edit: D'oh, the petition has already been written. I just had to sign it.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#134

Post by PrudenceYuris »

rprasad wrote: post #47
PrudenceYuris wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to reread that. Contact her professional network, and let them know you don't approve of her actions. No tar. No feathers. Just make your own opinion known in the circles that matter to her career.

Let me get this straight: you want to contact a group of judges and prosecutors and "let them know you don't approve of her actions." What exactly do you hope to accomplish by this? Federal judges and prosecutors already get this every day from people who do this for a living. And you know what? It doesn't work. Who cares if you don't approve of what they're doing? They don't measure themselves based on your approval…

Her entire career, professional circle, and reputational supports have made an error in backing her, and they need to hear that directly.

She hounded someone to suicide, and the repercussions for that are light if they are limited to ending her career.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#135

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mscarborough wrote: post #127
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're lucky we can get this kind of outrage built up when it is, and then fix it for everyone. These laws get passed when the innocent victim is a sympathetic white girl, why can't they get repealed when the innocent accused is a sympathetic white boy?

No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'. There's really no need to inject 'prosecuted white guy' into the conversation.

You're quite right that race shouldn't have anything to do with it; I shouldn't have written it that way. But this is clearly wrong:

>No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'.

We pass laws for specific sympathetic victims all the time. We often even name them after the victims. Megan's law, Amber alerts, etc.

It isn't that they're white that matters, what matters is that they're sympathetic. At best, if we assume society is fairly racist, maybe we see them as more sympathetic because they're white. But let me admit that was a mistake and move past it, because it's going down the wrong path.

The point is that most of the innocent accused in the existing justice system are poor, uneducated, largely unsympathetic urban youth who no one in power cares about. There is no powerful lobby to fix it for them.

In this case we have a brilliant kid who everyone loved, who was subjected to the same injustice. This should never have happened -- not to him, not to the others. So we should rally behind this tragedy and while we have the support of public opinion, prevent it from happening again, to anyone.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#137

Post by PrudenceYuris »

jfager wrote: post #82
pbateman wrote: post #2

From the link in the article: Depending on how many of the counts Swartz is found guilty of, the sentence could conceivably total 50+ years and fine in the area of $4 million. What an absurd and unreasonable level of punishment. Carmen Ortiz, the prosecutor who was behind this[1] needs to be publicly shamed. [1] (source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-c... )

The prosecutors actually working the case were Scott L. Garland and Stephen P. Heymann. (source: http://ia600504.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.mad.137... )

Stephen P. Heymann deserves special attention. He worked for the "Security Division" of EMC. He may have a past record of inflating small exploits with no criminal intent into federal cases. We don't need lawyers like that practising tech law.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#138

Post by Kliment »

csense wrote: post #108

Assuming he did it -- or he didn't but was going to be found guilty anyway -- wouldn't fifty years for this nonviolent crime, done in the Martin Luther King Jr. spirit of civil disobedience, by a person with (I assume) no prior criminal record, be Unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment?

Yes, but good luck getting a ruling saying that.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#139

Post by msutherl »

ceol wrote: post #116
genwin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, you know, you could just call your local Congressperson and complain. Almost certainly zero impact for this. Easily ignored. The prosecutor in this case, however, probably could not easily ignore her friends and family dumping her.

Do you really think your internet activism will cause her family and friends to "dump" her?

I hate to say this, but 4chan will take care of this and they will be effective.

Re: Prosecutor as bully

#140

Post by jrs235 »

downandout wrote: post #51
agwa wrote: post #18

From the article: For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge. Remember, this was on HN just a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

Approximately 97% of indicted federal defendants plead guilty before trial because of three aspects of our system: 1) US Attorneys routinely routinely overcharge defendants to an almost absurd degree; 2) The most commonly used federal statutes, such as the Wire Fraud statute, are so broadly written that people with no criminal intent could reasonably be found guilty; and 3) The maximum sentences for convictions under…

What do you think about jury nullification?

If more people knew about it, do you think "we the people" could reign in out of touch congress critters that write these laws (don't repeal or change them) and the over zealous executive branch (prosecutors and police) that attempt to rack up and level up charges.

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