It doesn't really matter. We want to incentivise guilty people pleading guilty mainly to lighten the load on the justice system. Being lenient to sincerely repenting people is a desirable side effect that nevertheless should not be pursued too hard.
It is this very question that the article poses, and it goes so much deeper than merely tech. "Do the sins of your past define you as a person today?"
Abraham Lincoln was likely raised as a racist and likely believed in racism for at least the decade that his parents' beliefs dominated his. Clearly his actions redeemed not only himself, but humanity; and I therefore believe that the person today is the more important person.
I've seen countless examples of people who have said stupid shit in the 90's or the 00's, who have changed their ways, who have been slaughtered by the larger internet. If you are to be ridiculed by Earth, why change your ways at all? Lose if you do, lose if you don't. If change is the goal, why attack people who actually change?
I struggle with my biases daily, I learned them from the South African government, but by hell I will better them and forget them. I am not the same person today as I was yesterday, nor are you and nor is Hutchins.
>But Mr. Hutchins, had no stomach for an interminable fight, and pleaded guilty last week to two counts under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Wiretap Act,
How do we know that it's not just because he thought he was most likely to be convicted and didn't want to roll the dice?
Also, I apologize for derailing my own comment, but what is up with the grammar in that paragraph and the one before. "amid complex legal questions that could have gone been appealed"? I've never seen an NYT piece with this many errors.