FBI and Secret Service Files: Aaron Swartz

Re:FBI and Secret Service Files: Aaron Swartz by tptacek on Saturday September 20, 2014 @02:49PM (#8345251)

Aaron's attorney at the time of his suicide wrote a summary of the case shortly after Aaron died. His attorney believed that given the nature of the crime (particularly: nonremunerative) and Aaron's first-time offender status, he was unlikely to serve a custodial sentence even if he was convicted. You can reach a similar conclusion by looking at the federal sentencing guidelines and seeing where the probation cutoff is.

This isn't bickering; the C.W. about Swartz is indeed that he was facing decades in prison. He was not.

I agree with the overwhelming majority of everyone that a custodial sentence for Swartz' actions would have been a miscarriage of justice. But the distinctions being made in this thread are not minor ones.

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Re:FBI and Secret Service Files: Aaron Swartz by mindslight on Saturday September 20, 2014 @03:31PM (#8345372)

The prosecution thought he would get well over six months in prison, so beliefs clearly differ.

From a security mindset, you must surely know that if something can happen, then you must consider it. The statistical "expected outcome" of the sentence is irrelevant when it's the variance that's so crushing.

I'll give you that "decades" is an emotional exaggeration the other way. But unless you can bound that maximum at less than three years, then I would still call it "bickering". Anything in that range is life altering, and distinguishing between personality-ending and life-ending isn't particularly meaningful when they have a similar effect on the defendant.

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Re:FBI and Secret Service Files: Aaron Swartz by tptacek on Saturday September 20, 2014 @04:41PM (#8345536)

You can look at sentences for comparable crimes with remunerative intent. For instance: Stephen Watt got 2 years for being instrumental to a massive credit card theft operation.

Another question you could ask is, is there an expert in criminal law who has made a case for Swartz actually facing 3+ years in prison?

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