Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 209 posts

Re: undefined

#71

Post by yardie »

fleitz wrote: post #22
pbreit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"she approved it, and therefore she said it" Are either of those clauses accurate?

Depends on what the context is... In an affadavit... yes...? In an election... maybe? As a press release from a prosecutors office? Probably not. Either you like Mrs. Ortiz or not, no one is really going to make their decision based on whether or not Aaron Schwartz believed he was facing 6 years, or 35 years. He was looking at 6 months tops, which means serving 2 tops as a first time offender, which means probably ou…

I don't believe he was going to do 35 years, nor 6 months. I don't think he did anything that warranted serving a jail sentence and felony conviction at all. If you think just taking the felony rap without serving a sentence is just as good, boy does the rest of the world has some news for you.

I think he was already depressed, the charges were weighing on him, and so were the legal fees.

Re: undefined

#72

Post by chmike »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
chmike wrote: post #36

This sounds indeed defamatory and Linus was once again too impulsive. Not sure if the target will be as complaisant as his other victims. However the situation is indeed very shocking and Carmen Oritz's public reaction is also in my view extremely disappointing and shocking. Apparently all this was an attempt to use a "big mistake" [1] of Aaron as a leverage for her self promotion with political goals and it backfire…

I think Ortiz is painfully aware that any words she says will be parsed extremely carefully and that if she so much as leaves a tiny surface with grip on it that surface will be eventually found and used to hit her as hard as the situation allows. Any admission, any implicit acceptance of responsibility, even a moral one could come back to haunt her in a possible civil suit. She's already fighting that battle today,…

Agree and thank you for clarifying this.

These thoughts made me conscious of the difference in the "truth seeking process" of science and justice. In science, there is a natural and strong incentive to be objective and honest (cf. MIT's open comment on Aaron's death). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case in the justice system regardless of the country. Why is that ?

Could it be because the justice actors are considered not accountable for their "errors", because there is no credibility karma in play like in science, because a final decision must be made in a fixed time frame even if it can't be made on the "real truth" ?

The justice system looks so middle age compared to science. And I already think in frustration that there is still plenty of room to make science more efficient in its truth seeking process. Lowering access barrier to scientific research knowledge is one of them !

Re: undefined

#73

Post by intended »

downandout wrote: post #45
gojomo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the weaselly shades of English used by lawyers and politicians, the two statements highlighted by Torvalds do not necessarily contradict one another. The older statement accurately describes the maximums the law allows, and was used when that was the emphasis. (At the time, the DoJ probably didn't know themselves what sort of sentence they'd ask for, so the only informative and unfalsifiable thing to put in a PR s…

I expect that any criminal defendant, including Aaron, would read her initial statement as "they're going to put me in prison for 35 years". Even as plea negotiations went forward, the implication was "plead this out or you will get 35 years". She made statements that only a lawyer could love - rife with plausible deniability for any responsibility they have in this mess. However, I think any reasonable person would…

> I expect that any criminal defendant, including Aaron, would read her initial statement as "they're going to put me in prison for 35 years".

This is pretty much the reason they say "get a lawyer", and let them work at it.

The field does require a lot of effort and education to get proficient in. Programmers get annoyed when someone tells them "just code this brilliant idea up and we will be rich".

This is similar.

Re: undefined

#74

Post by koide »

Ortiz is not responsible for Aaron's death, even if she lied.

The real problem is the how the prosecution system is based on terror instead of on justice. Laws can be made less amenable to be used to terrorize, but as long as the deep roots of the system are based on terror, changing laws will not suffice.

The aim should be to fix the system and the laws that make the system, not only to fix each overreaching law at a time.

This besides the issue of whether or not making Ortiz pay is adequate.

Re: undefined

#75

Post by RobAley »

btilly wrote: post #3

Linus is dead wrong on this. We have independent confirmation of everything that Ortiz said from the Boston Globe's interview with Aaron's defense attorney. The maximum statutory penalty for the original 4 indictments was 35 years. The prosecutor was planning to seek 6-7 years. There were two plea bargains offered, one was 4 months and no disputing the period, the other was 6 months but the defense attorney would be…

Linus addresses this in a comment further down below his post :

"oh, I'm sure that it's "true" that in private talks they were very much not seeking the maximum penalty. That's how the whole plea bargain thing works.

But there's no question that Carmen Ortiz' office also made the whole thing very public, and everything that ever got written about that PR statement talked about the "up to 35 years" etc. So the whole "never said we intended to seek" thing is at very best misleading. It was always there very much as a threat.

It was always there very much hanging over Aaron Swartz.

And trying to say anything else is just lying."

Re: undefined

#76

Post by jacquesm »

koide wrote: post #74

Ortiz is not responsible for Aaron's death, even if she lied. The real problem is the how the prosecution system is based on terror instead of on justice. Laws can be made less amenable to be used to terrorize, but as long as the deep roots of the system are based on terror, changing laws will not suffice. The aim should be to fix the system and the laws that make the system, not only to fix each overreaching law at…

> Ortiz is not responsible for Aaron's death, even if she lied.

She is not fully responsible but she - and Heymann - at least carry partial responsibility for pushing him as far as they did, and consequentially (at least in my opinion) carry partial responsibility for Aaron's death.

Re: undefined

#77

Post by philwelch »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #44

Removing / blaming one person without reforming the system is called a "purge" as in Stalinist Purge Please fix the system not the blame Suggestion: are plea bargains public record? If so can we parse and publicise them? Would it be interesting to know the ratio of years charged vs years pleaded - especially by race and offence and state? Edit: no not trying to compare this in degree with marching thousands to death…

The result of any charges are in the public record, and since no one just pleads guilty without trying to get something out of the deal, you can just analyze every guilty plea and the sentence suggested by the prosecution and assume it's a plea bargain.

Re: undefined

#78

Post by duaneb »

thetruthNow wrote: post #49

I tracked down Carmen Ortiz's personal information online. I'm sure she would love to hear from Us, The People who she represents, directly. Name: Carmen Milagros Ortiz DOB: 01/05/1956 Address: 20 Herrick Dr, Milton, MA This is how I found her info: 1. This article mentions that she's from Milton, MA: http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x655689172/Q-A-New-US-Atto... 2. Carmen Ortiz is married to Thomas Dolan according…

Flagged-exactly what will NOT help.

Re: undefined

#79

Post by noonespecial »

Ortiz is just doing her best to make us think that Aaron wasn't being threatened with massive jail time the same way she lead Aaron to believe that he was. By not saying it directly and letting innuendo and suggestion do the talking.

Linus is a programmer. Booleans can't have the value "dishonest". False is the closest approximation. Cut the man some slack.

Re: undefined

#80

Post by watt »

javert wrote: post #70
btilly wrote: post #3

Linus is dead wrong on this. We have independent confirmation of everything that Ortiz said from the Boston Globe's interview with Aaron's defense attorney. The maximum statutory penalty for the original 4 indictments was 35 years. The prosecutor was planning to seek 6-7 years. There were two plea bargains offered, one was 4 months and no disputing the period, the other was 6 months but the defense attorney would be…

As a regular intelligent American person (i.e., not a lawyer), you are correct, and Linus is wrong. It is just obvious that the first thing she put out was purely legal posturing. They do it all the time. It means nothing.

It made Aaron kill himself. Must mean something.
Post reply on HN