Untitled topic • Hacker News Board

Re: undefined

#101

Post by pacala » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 12:51 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #39

dustin wrote: post #18

For all the posts saying Linus is wrong, which he may well be technically, consider this from a layman's perspective. Ortiz recently: "At no time did this office ever seek ... maximum penalties under the law." Justice.gov previously: "SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison..." At a minimum it's a bad PR screw-up on their part and they're backpedaling because their "make us look tough" press releases have backfired. Mo…

Even outside of legalese, words have meaning. Saying in a press release that Mr. Swartz "faces up to 35 years in prison" is not the same as actively seeking the maximum penalty. It's likely that the original press release was meant to add credibility to the prosecution, in the eyes of the general public -- to highlight that, in view of the law, what the defendant was charged with was no small matter. I really don't s…

Indeed words have a meaning. If you issue a statement that "the defendant is charged with crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 35 years", then you inherently quantify the gravity of the defendant acts as a 35 year jail time crime. If, instead, you issue a statement that "we are seeking to put the defendant in jail for 6 months", then you quantify the gravity of the defendant acts as a 6 months jail time crime. These are not nearly the same and Carmen Ortiz never issued the second statement in public on the record.

We may further argue that this is how "everybody does this" and "she can't weaken her bargaining hand". To me, a justice system that depends on bargaining instead of truth feels fundamentally wrong. That is the deep issue at stake, and not the political fortunes of one Carmen Ortiz.

Re: undefined

#102

Post by arthurrr » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 12:53 PM UTC

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 is not dead wrong. This should not be reduced to simple binary. To argue whether or not Linus is technically right or wrong seems pointless to me.

Tangentially, it really bothers me that there is even such a job as Government Prosecutor. Government should not have a self-interest. The system really is fubar, the only solution is probably 'rm -rf /'. At some point in Carmen Ortiz's life, she decided to devote her life to becoming a government prosecutor. That in and of itself speaks of her character. Whether or not she is lying in this particular instance is irrelevant, this is who she is, this is what she does, this is what she chose to devote her life to.

(Of course she's lying! She a prosecutor for chrissakes! AND she works for the government! Did she open her mouth? That means she's lying!)

Re: undefined

#103

Post by twoodfin » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 12:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #61

rhizome wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't lawyers, we can call her a liar if she appears to be one, especially if "there's a lot of room for interpretation." It's a huge joke that we're debating whether "the lawyer says they're not lying" is a good argument. What's problematic for her is that "the ecosystem she's operating in" aren't the only forces at work. Maybe she thought the age-old mechanism of press releases and who-gives-a-shit-what-lawyers…

> Lawyers can't force us to operate in their ecosystem Unfortunately we are doing exactly that. All of us are operating in an ecosystem crafted by lawyers. And so when we run into the boundaries set we will find lawyers or legally schooled people on all three sides of the table, the prosecution, our defense counsel and the judge. They use our language but in a way that appears twisted and dishonest to laypeople. We p…

Ortiz is using her position as a stepping stone to further her career. Aaron was to her a conveniently placed cobblestone that she could put her spiked heel on to make it to the next level. I'm pretty sure she regrets this, but only because it damaged her career chances.

"Spiked heel"? Regret over a dead defendant "only because it damaged her career choices"?

You've been fairly rational in most of these discussions, but you're just egging on the mob here.

Re: undefined

#104

Post by pacala » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 12:59 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #98

pacala wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one detail: she never added, in public, "I'm seeking X years". She always kept talking about the maximum penalty. The ball is in her court and Linus is right to call her backpedaling a lie.

I would not expect a prosecutor to talk about the sentence she seeks before the actual court hearing. And we don't know at all what was discussed in the plea bargainings. So no - no lie. Not here. Coming from a different legal system (germany) I find the way prosecution and plea bargaining works in the states scary, but calling the prosecutor a liar when she works in the common framework is not helpful. It just under…

The core issue is that the system relies on bargaining instead of truth. But we can't make judgements of the system in abstract. The system is the sum of the actions of its participants. In that sense, it is perfectly fine to call out individual actions "lies", even if they perfectly fit the system. That only illustrates the absurdity of the system.

Back to the facts: Carmen Ortiz (participant in the system) placed an upper bound of 35 years. She never placed any other gravity quantification in public on the record. All that is on the record is that she thought that the crimes are in the 35 years gravity class. Coming back and saying "I really meant 6 months" is a a contradiction of on the record facts, aka a lie.

Re: undefined

#105

Post by mverwijs » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:02 PM UTC

zokier wrote: post #88

RobAley wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "…

> It was always there very much as a threat. But wouldn't the maximum penalty be there always no matter what the prosecution would do? I mean, isn't the final decision made by the judges, who can give the penalty the deem fit (in the bounds of the law)?

Isn't the max penalty dependant on what the charges were? Those charges were in the hands of the procecutors. If they really did not wish to come across as threatening, they could have charged him with less (as far as I understand it).

Re: undefined

#106

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:03 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #103

jacquesm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lawyers can't force us to operate in their ecosystem Unfortunately we are doing exactly that. All of us are operating in an ecosystem crafted by lawyers. And so when we run into the boundaries set we will find lawyers or legally schooled people on all three sides of the table, the prosecution, our defense counsel and the judge. They use our language but in a way that appears twisted and dishonest to laypeople. We p…

Ortiz is using her position as a stepping stone to further her career. Aaron was to her a conveniently placed cobblestone that she could put her spiked heel on to make it to the next level. I'm pretty sure she regrets this, but only because it damaged her career chances. "Spiked heel"? Regret over a dead defendant "only because it damaged her career choices"? You've been fairly rational in most of these discussions,…

> You've been fairly rational in most of these discussions, but you're just egging on the mob here.

Feel free to disagree, I call them as I see them. I think her statement is cynical in the extreme, quite possibly to head off any claims by the family and I think that her whole 'tough' stance is just to further her own career goals.

If you have evidence to the contrary I'll be more than happy to adjust my position. Crocodile tears after the fact are not persuasive, not accepting any responsibility at all is very telling.

Re: undefined

#107

Post by jeswin » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:04 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

Well, he's wrong about this. Quoting the maximum statutory penalty is the standard in news releases, but tells you exactly zero about the negotiations in attorney conferences. US attorneys don't write the press releases, those are done by the most junior lawyers and quote the statutory maximum because it's factual without giving anything away about the government's courtroom strategy.

Even if it wasn't 35 years, 6-7 years is plenty long to ruin anyone's life.

If Aaron decided not to accept the guilty plea, his option was 6-7 years and not 6 months. After reading everything that has been written about him, I would assume that he won't choose a 6-month sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to liberating information.

Re: undefined

#108

Post by mverwijs » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #39

dustin wrote: post #18

For all the posts saying Linus is wrong, which he may well be technically, consider this from a layman's perspective. Ortiz recently: "At no time did this office ever seek ... maximum penalties under the law." Justice.gov previously: "SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison..." At a minimum it's a bad PR screw-up on their part and they're backpedaling because their "make us look tough" press releases have backfired. Mo…

Even outside of legalese, words have meaning. Saying in a press release that Mr. Swartz "faces up to 35 years in prison" is not the same as actively seeking the maximum penalty. It's likely that the original press release was meant to add credibility to the prosecution, in the eyes of the general public -- to highlight that, in view of the law, what the defendant was charged with was no small matter. I really don't s…

"Yes, that's a wonderful family you have there.

Shame if anything, you know, were to happen to it."

That is how this whole wording of 2011 comes across to me.

Re: undefined

#109

Post by eliben » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:16 PM UTC

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…

Where emotions prevail, the chances of a real, objective discussion are very slim.

Re: undefined

#110

Post by baak » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 1:28 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #31

jamesaguilar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding me? She/her office understood, I'm sure, that he thought he was doing things for the greater good. That doesn't mean that he is legally allowed to nor that she is barred from prosecuting him because his intentions were so pure. Not everyone when disagrees with your favored political stance on am issue is too dumb to understand it. Some just disagree. Calling her am idiot on this context is simply with…

> She/her office understood, I'm sure, that he thought he was doing things for the greater good. I have not seen any proof or acknowledgement of that. > That doesn't mean that he is legally allowed to nor that she is barred from prosecuting him because his intentions were so pure. This is true, and nobody has said that she should not have prosecuted. The things that are being said are: - this prosecution was subject…

Which other more serious cases did Ortiz choose not to pursue and why? Perhaps there wasn't good enough evidence to pursue them?

I really don't think she's an idiot... I know we're honor-bound not to like her, but we're calling her an idiot because we have no proof to the contrary? What...?