She's not just a random entreprenuer. Medical startups need to be held to a higher standard than average tech companies and the punishment for fraud that puts patients at risk should be as harsh as possible.
Ian Gibbons
White collar crime should be punished to the utmost degree. These are usually people that had everything given to them to live a legitimate, educated, and safe life, and they blew it all due to greed and ego. Most non- “white collar” criminals didn’t have that chance to start with. And white collar crime usually affects a multitude of people over periods of years. It’s not like most other crimes that happen on much smaller timescales with a lot more emotion involved. White collar crime usually means someone is waking up every day for years saying “yep, I’m still gonna keep doing this”.
This seems a bit weird to me.
If one engages in behavior that creates real bodily risk for people, that ought to be the crime. The probability of injury that was created, not the outcome. If it just so happens that the dice landed in a way that didn’t harm anyone, that doesn’t tell us anything about her intention, how dangerous it is to have her out in society.
Especially for white collar crimes, where the execution of the risk is often set up in such a manner that the perpetrator isn’t there for the injury. If somebody breaks into a gas station and tries to rob the place with a weapon, but at the critical moment doesn’t actually hurt anyone, that’s still obviously very serious, but we can infer that they have some little bit of conscience that spoke up when it was most needed. Not so for the person who set up a dangerous abstract process that just happened to not hurt anyone by coincidence.
This former federal prosecutor does not think so:
> Anyone who claims Holmes received more or less than what she was “supposed to get” does not understand federal sentencing. I served for almost seven years as a federal prosecutor, led dozens of sentencings and co-authored a nationwide guide to prosecutors on the topic, and I couldn’t predict with any confidence what sentence Holmes would receive.
> Indeed, 10 different federal judges would have likely imposed 10 different sentences on Holmes. That’s both a function of the general process and of Holmes’ particular case. She didn’t face a mandatory minimum sentence (meaning the judge was not required to impose a prison term), while her maximum sentence under the relevant statutes for her offense was 80 years (20 years for each of the four wire fraud counts of conviction).
[...]
> Common sense and a dose of perspective show that Holmes shouldn’t spend more than a decade in prison, let alone 15 years. [...] In other words, her crime was serious, but prosecutors can point to no dead body or even serious bodily injury, though the risk was real. [...] At this point the overriding question should be about the prospect of rehabilitation. Holmes can be a productive member of society. The judge, while not sentencing her to as much prison time as he could have, should have shown more leniency.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/elizabeth-holmes-sente...