Re:Aaron Swartz Legal Defense Fund
by Zak on Sunday September 16, 2012 @02:36PM
(#4529896)
A prosecutor's job is to seek justice, not convictions. If a prosecutor believes a conviction would be unjust despite being technically compatible with the law, it would be unethical to pursue such a conviction.
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A prosecutor's job is to seek justice, not convictions.
No, a prosecutor's job is not to seek justice, their job in adversarial legal system is to prosecute a case in the guidelines of the law. Its pretty clear that the prosecutor has a case against Aaron and its not their job to decide on whether the law is "just" or "right" their job is to prosecute that case to the fullest extent of the law. The last thing we need are prosecutors choosing what laws should and should not be enforced.
Its the judge and jury's job to decide what and what is not just.
Wrong. "The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done." -- Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5318644154387676...
That's not true. The prosecution definitely does have discretion in which cases to bring and they are expected to use it in the service of justice.
Prosecutorial discretion doesn't enter into this case; this is a prosecution-driven case. They are bringing this case very deliberately.