When someone is charged with certain crimes and the press (or a press release) mentions he faces up to X years, it is always the maximum penalty that is being quoted, while the prosecutor usually does not seek it (anything else would be untrue). If Aaron Swartz himself did not realize that, I am sure that his lawyer could have cleared up any confusion for him.

What makes you think they had a plea bargain agreement to announce at that early stage? Issuing a public statement before an agreement is reached doesn't help anyone.

You need to understand that these people are maximalists. They're never going to say 'we're asking for 7 years' in any context where that can be recorded, because it weakens their hand at the bargaining table. In fact, the shakier the case is, the more they need those 'worst case' numbers to terrify.

The only things that matter to these maximalist dickholes is:

* successful conviction * maximum penalty they can achieve with what they have * if you don't take the plea bargain, make you regret it

If they really hate you, they put people on 'document generation duty', which is cheaper than document review, and throw hundreds of thousands of documents at you during trial. They find the most expensive venue for you, and if you have an employer that has somehow stuck by you this long, they coerce it into letting you go.

The entire goal of this sort of thing is to deprive people of a chance to actually go to trial and stand a chance of acquittal, particularly when gaining a conviction 'honestly' is going to be difficult or expensive.

I don't even think that it's a maximalist approach. It's a "we don't talk about ongoing investigations" approach so there is no figure that anybody could quote apart from the maximum.

Aaron's lawyers have said he was facing 7 years, not 35, if he went to trial and lost. Aaron knew this.

You can still find this entirely too long.