Further, while it is possible that circumstances could arise in which a 4 month plea from Swartz could be ignored by the judge, those circumstances are extremely unlikely. Not only do judges rubber stamp plea deals, but in a case involving 13 felonies, Swartz would very likely have arranged a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea in which the judge's refusal to accept the plea simply would have resulted in a trial.
Yeah well, lots of things were unlikely here, and yet.
Most honest defense lawyers will really have the best interest of their client at heart, and just dismiss themselves if they feel they can't work with a certain prosecutor; they might even recommend their own replacement. After all, it's in their own best interest not to get what they feel is a sub-par result on their CV.
The fact that Swartz went through three lawyers, coupled with what the last one of them said, might as well indicate that all of them felt the prosecution was being unreasonable, and were hoping that a different person might have obtained better results.
I also disagree with his view that (I paraphrase) "we shouldn't criticize special cases, we should criticize what goes on every day". Yes, we all agree that you shouldn't "be good" only at Christmas, but the reality of this world is that legislative bodies quite often (if not all the time) will only act on the impulse of particular cases. This is what is happening now, which is good. Also, I'm sure that not "every day" prosecutors callously dismiss proven suicidal tendencies in pursuit of career-enhancing convictions, if anything to avoid ending up in a mess like this -- except for Heymann, who clearly won't give two shits about the wellbeing of young hackers. One case is a mistake, two is a pattern, and Heymann and his boss should take responsibility for their behaviour.