And of course, as we all know from the Aaron Swartz coverage, "could serve for as long as..." is different than "actually serve a sentence of [xy] ears".

But the most relevant quibble is this: a father who beats these rapists with his fists would also face a longer sentence than these accused rapists (who, according to the OP, faced 1-2 years)...because these convicted offenders were juveniles.

And as much as we want to celebrate extra-judicial vengenance upon convicts, juvenile or not, I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences when our justice/political system looks the other way upon unlawful actions in which "the ends justified the means".

...because, I mean, isn't that at the core of the NSA controversy that is currently raging in the the other 20 HN threads?

* edit: the original title for this submission was "Hacker...Could Be Convicted for Longer..."

Or as I like to put it, something about having your cake and eating it. We can't demand the administration turn a blind eye here, and rage at that same administration when they turn a blind eye there.

> But the most relevant quibble is this: a father who beats these rapists with his fists would also face a longer sentence than these accused rapists (who, according to the OP, faced 1-2 years)...because these convicted offenders were juveniles.* *

=======================

These offenders were teenagers. They are not five years old, they know - at least in general terms - what's right and wrong, and they know what will hurt someone. And they did it anyway.

Charging someone as a juvenile ought to be for kiddy-screwup fist fights and stupid kid mistakes, so that some momentary lack of judgement doesn't screw someone's life up, not for raping someone - that's not a momentary mistake.

========QUOTE==========

And as much as we want to celebrate extra-judicial vengenance upon convicts, juvenile or not, I think we should be aware that there may be unpleasant consequences when our justice/political system looks the other way upon unlawful actions in which "the ends justified the means".

...because, I mean, isn't that at the core of the NSA controversy that is currently raging in the the other 20 HN threads?

=======================

Not from my point of view, no. The law is going to be selectively enforced - there's nothing you can do about it. And the law is so ridiculously messed up that total enforcement isn't even something desirable. The average person commits, I believe it's 3, felonies a day. The US gov can't even count all the laws anymore. We're all guilty.

That's why you need a system that lets people adjust the application of law for common decency. That's why you need a jury of your peers with the ability to refuse to convict. (Granted, a legal theory that seems relatively unknown these days.)

These men were old enough to rape, they should be old enough to do the time and if your excuse was that they were juveniles, then just remember that they could (and should have been) charged as adults. Alas the bastards weren't, but that is prosecutal misconduct, not justice.

A girl in a high school football-obsessed small town went to a party and was assaulted by football players who later bragged about it on Twitter.

A blogger saw the posts (later deleted) and took screenshots. She tried to get justice for the victim by re-posting these on her blog. For this she was hounded relentlessly in the town and a defamation suit was brought against her.

The players bragged that the coach knew about the accusations and would make them go away.

Two of the football players were later given 1 and 2 year sentences in juvenile detention, largely due to the efforts by people who got involved in bringing this case to a wider audience.

As for the hacker...

I've read the linked article, another article, the accused's webpage, and an article by the blogger who stood up for the rape victim, and I still can't figure out exactly what role, if any, this guy had in this mess.

was raped by

FTFY. Let's not mince words here. This was not merely assault (which can describe something as mild as a punch or a shove). This was rape, committed by multiple parties, followed by degradation on camera for others to see. And, the girl was so drunk/drugged that she probably should have been seen by a doctor...instead the people around her took it as an opportunity to prey upon her.

Sexual assault generally means "unwanted penetration" (legally), which includes whatever happened here (unclear exactly from the articles I read).

The participants posted their thoughts during the sex assault in real time to Facebook. It was these threads that Ms. Goddard saved, and which Mr. Lostutter then published (eventually leading to his arrest for 'hacking'). One thread stated that the girl must be dead because "You don't sleep through a wang in the butthole." This suggests that among the various events was someone engaged in anal insertion of their "wang" into the victim. They also bragged about what they themselves termed a "rape" in a separate incident the previous April.

Source: http://m.xojane.com/issues/steubenville-rape-verdict-alexand...

In the actual plea bargain the two that were sentenced admitted to "digital insertion", which is generally understood to be finger penetration. This seems to understate the extent of the rape however, based on the statements they made during the rape to their Facebook accounts.

I'm not sure it's worth your time to contend this. The debate surrounding rape is very if-you-arent-with-us-youre-against-us, so too often it seems it's already a lost battle.

- The concept of "rape culture"

- Questions like, "what should be done about the devastating affects on the life of someone accused (but acquitted) of rape?"

- Taking into consideration the impact on the accused, questions like "should women who make blatantly false or frivolous claims of rape be held liable?"

I don't claim to know the answers to any of these bullet points, but the fact of the matter is they are hotly contested even today- thus, debated.

Here is full story with screenshots and video: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/anonymous-rape-s...

By the way, if anyone is ever in this situation, don't do this on behalf of the victim unless they ask you to. It may very well be perceived as a violation. I don't know the specifics here, but in general, this is not the way to help. Tread lightly. Rape victims are often cast aside by the government who cares only about prosecution and little about healing. We need not do the same in misguided attempts to help. Put the victim first.

Thank you for bringing up something that needs to be considered, but situations like this are too complex for hard rules.

excerpt: "People reporting on federal criminal justice — whether journalists or bloggers — routinely report on the statutory maximum sentence that a defendant could hypothetically get, an oft-ridiculous figure calculated by taking all the charged crimes and adding up the maximum punishment for each. This is usually followed by some sort of pronouncement that THIS PERSON CHARGED OF MINOR CRIMES FACES MORE JAIL TIME THAN YOU'D GET IF YOU BEAT A TODDLER TO DEATH WITH AN UNCONSCIOUS NUN WHILE RAPING A BLIND LIBRARIAN, or words to that effect."

Even if they won't get the maximum, the number is still significant, because it serves as the anchor for extorting a plea bargain, as well as sentencing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

I know it isn't just something we can 'fix' easily, but it does seem to be a bug in the system essentially.

There is a joke in Russia about a person buying a fake money printing device. After discovering that the device itself is a fake (it was loaded with a bit of real money for demo purposes during sale), the buyer reports the fraud to the authorities. As result the seller gets relatively small time for the fraud he committed against the buyer and the buyer gets much bigger time because he tried to commit fraud (ie. intended to print fake money) against the government.

At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. "As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to 'Get the fuck down!' with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head," Lostutter wrote today on his blog. "I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house.

* They need to justify all of their equipment and training so they make copious use of it.

* They don't know if the person is armed or not, so better safe than sorry when it comes to the lives of agents.

* "It's just standard procedure."

... etc

I wonder if there are any actual statistics on this. We always hear the arguments about the number of accidental firearms deaths in favor of gun control, is there any reason to suspect the situation to be orders of magnitude different with a group of cowboy cops? If anything it could be worse in a group, because it turns the situation into a powder keg such that one shot fired by anyone (or anything that sounds like one) and you immediately have a massive firefight in an area populated by numerous friendlies and nearby civilians.

  | While you never know who's armed and who's not

  | in these cases they're probably just as worried
  | about the destruction of evidence

And either way I don't see why you'd not be OK with rifles but would be OK with handguns. Once you're OK with the arresting officers being armed the rest is just a matter of degree.

  | the rest is just a matter of degree.

A SWAT team, on the other hand - I don't care how dumb, drunk, or high I am, if ten officers with heavy weaponry come with a helicopter escort, I know I'm going to lose.

Either way the comment didn't say that "more force is always better" like you seem to go along with, only that a couple of agents with handguns are in a different category than a bunch of agents with rifles available. But once you have a bunch of agents with rifles, adding a tank or soldiers doesn't significantly change the risk equation for the Feds so even their ORM analysis would say not to do it.

The problem with that policy was that police didn't get to shoot enough dogs.

After all, pointing an M16 at someone wont hurt them any more than pointing a .38 special at them, but it's a hell of a lot less tempting to run/fight back against an overwhelming force.

That they seem heavy handed in this case is just a result of it being on the edge of the range they need to cover.

The constitution is all about that: freedom and how the State handles the issues. Due process cannot be subverted without punishment even though doing so may have 'good consequences': the classical problem of the ends and the means.

(Perhaps people don't think the hacker did anything that should be considered a crime worthy of a sentence that long, but that's a totally different argument)

That one of his deeds ended up resulting in outing bad people, does not mean that he is always so conscious or on the side of good.