[samcday]

   But I wonder: if there was a way to reduce the duration of the cases, would that reduce the impact on whistleblowers?

I remember reading somewhere recently about the standard M.O for federal cases. They take a long time in order to build an extremely solid case. That's why federal conviction rates are so high.

Intuitively it makes sense. If you're gonna go after some naughty people for doing naughty things, you really don't want to rush the investigation and have the findings fall apart at trial.

[ramblerouser]

This is totally incorrect. The high conviction rate is a result of extremely high maximum sentences. People who are 100% innocent often plead guilty after being threatened with a 30-year prison sentence that would be only 1 or 2 years under local law.

Many federal crimes are unconstitutional and deliberately vague, like "lying (not volunteering incriminating evidence) to an investigator" and "mail fraud" which is just a way to charge you in federal court where the odds are stacked against you.

The US federal judicialry is a kangaroo court. 99% of federal crimes should be repealed and maximum sentences reduced to be in line with state laws.

Federal jury selection is also suspect, especially in cases involving "national security".

[gizmo385]

> like "lying (not volunteering incriminating evidence) to an investigator"

This is literally the purpose of the 5th amendment. If you get asked a question where the answer would incriminate you, you are well within your rights to refuse to answer the question. Taking the path of deliberately attempt to mislead investigators is most certainly a crime and it should be.

[ramblerouser]

In principle I agree with you. In practice however, the FBI just uses this to harrass people. Look at what happened to Marth Stewart. She was totally innocent, did not say anything factually incorrect, but the feds thought she exagerated in some of her answers. That level of subjectivity shouldn't be involved in determining a criminal offense.

[chrisbennet]

I assume whomever downvoted You has forgotten what happened to Aaron Schwartz.

[tzs]

He's probably being down-voted for saying erroneous things like

> The high conviction rate is a result of extremely high maximum sentences. People who are 100% innocent often plead guilty after being threatened with a 30-year prison sentence that would be only 1 or 2 years under local law.

That's erroneous because very few federal defendants actually face such long sentences, so those that do so pleading guilty is not a plausible explanation for high conviction rates.

Federal sentences for a particular instance of a crime are based on the class of the crime and on the details of the particular instance. The class sets an upper limit, which often is long, up to 20 years, but it is the details that determine how much you can actually get. To actually get anywhere near that 20 years you have to have a lot of the details against you. Typically this means you caused a lot of damages or harm, had multiple prior convictions for similar crimes, where doing it as part of organized crime, and similar things.

Swartz is a good example. A lot of reporting said he faced 30 years or 50 years or similar big numbers. Actually, he was looking at maybe 6 or 7 years if things went as favorably as possible for prosecutors.

The DOJ bears a lot of the blame for that bad reporting. They make no attempt in the press releases announcing indictments to actually compute the maximum sentence for the particular instance of the crime. They just give the maximum that it is possible for the worst possible instance of that crime committed by the worst possible defendant.

Here's a good article on federal sentence length [1].

[1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

[towelr34dy]

When you say "he was looking at maybe 6 or 7 years if things went as favorably as possible for prosecutors"

Do you know this for a fact?

Because the way I understand it is, he was facing multiple decades in prison IF all charges stuck. And once you got to trial, all charges can stick. It has happened. So he was facing 35 years. So saying he wasn't is just wrong.

Your 6-7 years is 'probably'.

I think what your saying is: The federal government doesn't threaten you with 35 years, they threaten you with 10x3.5 years, and since it is possible that not all 10 will stick... it's not really a 35 year threat?

I mean, if I threaten to punch you 10 times but I might stop at 1,2,3 or any number and I probably won't get to 10, but we can negotiate before I start, is it not a 10 punch threat?

To me it seems like you are splitting hairs in order to defend the indefensible. The practice of tacking on as many charges to get people to plea bargain is unethical and fascist.

[secabeen]

There's no way to know it as a fact because the judge is legally allowed to apply any sentence up to that maximum. His link shows that most judges follow the guidelines, and vary rarely go over them. Intelligent decisions are ones that are made after understanding probabilities. Unfortunately Aaron decided to take the guaranteed outcome of suicide over the small chance that he'd serve multiple decades. I think we all can agree that that was not the right choice.

We see this sort of "up to" crap all the time in our culture. It's still misleading. Accurate, but fundamentally misleading and wrong.

[towelr34dy]

So you are saying: Judges never convict people to the maximum sentence? I'm sorry, your point isn't very clear. It's a bit muddled.

Or are you saying that his probably of being sentenced to the maximum was low? If so, how low? And when does it stop being 'intelligent' to consider a small probability with a horribly outcome? I mean, in your intelligent opinion.

[tptacek]

We know his own lawyer said that he was unlikely to get more than a couple years, and was plausibly looking at a non-custodial sentence even if convicted.

We also know that the absurd sentences you're referring to would be departures from the federal sentencing guidelines, which spell out where in the range of possible sentences each specific case lands.

[tzs]

Suppose I toss a brick through the window of a government office overnight when no one is inside, causing $101 worth of damage. I could be charged with felony destruction of government property, a crime with the statute says has a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $250k find.

Am I facing 10 years in prison? No! That's because the way sentencing works under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is that the sentence range is looked up in a table whose rows range from short sentences up to the maximum (10 years in this case). The biggest factor in that lookup is how much monetary damage I caused. At $101 I'm going go get a row with a sentencing range that is something like up to a year or so.

To push it up to where my sentencing row actually includes 10 years I'd have to have done a lot more damage, such as blown up the building.

(There are other factors that also go into picking the row, such as if I have prior convictions for similar crimes).

When I'm indicted, though, the DOJ press release will tout that I've been charged with a crime with up to 10 years and $250k fines as penalties. They'd say the same thing when indicting someone who blew up the whole building. Their press releases make no attempt to convey the sentence the person is actually facing based on the facts the DOJ is alleging about that person's alleged crime.

In the case of someone charged with multiple crimes there is another factor that leads to inflated numbers. The same underlying acts can often support more than one charge. Similar crimes are grouped together for sentencing under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, and if you are charged with and convicted of more than one crime from the same group based on the same underlying acts, you are only sentenced for one of them.

Unfortunately, this grouping is often ignored in press releases and reporting about potential sentencing.

In most cases, those multi-decade numbers you see people talk are due to one or both of the aforementioned issues: (1) not taking into account what the person is actually alleged to have done, and (2) ignoring grouping if the person is charged with more than one thing.

Here is a detailed analysis of Swartz's possible sentencing [1]. The earlier article by the same author looking at what he was charged with is also interesting [2].

[1] http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa...

[2] http://volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/

[towelr34dy]

Your 6-7 years is 'probably'. PEOPLE DO GET MAXIMUM. It happens. Therefore you saying it doesn't won't change anything. Your equating low probability with no probability. This is a false equation.

Have some intellectual honesty and admit you were wrong.

[ramblerouser]

People are risk averse. The maximum sentences exist to scare people into irrationally pleading guilty when they are innocent. Federal maximum sentences are out of line with state sentencing because the federal government is less local and less accountable. Many federal crimes exist solely to trump up this maximum possible sentence. Politically connected people use this system to protect themselves against whistleblowers and political activists like Swartz and Snowden. I dont think you have addressed any of these points.

[fixermark]

... or they know about the time a woman in Pennsylvania was able to seek justice by getting her murder-attempting neighbor on mail fraud when the local cops wouldn't do anything.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/21/us.scotus.toxic.love/ind...

[michaelbuckbee]

Or Wen Ho Lee - charged with 59 counts of espionage (stealing nuclear secrets). Eventually was convicted/plead to one count of mishandling data and went on to get a $1mil settlement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Ho_Lee

[dasil003]

Swartz

[ramblerouser]

Or maybe puts on tin foil hat they know exactly what happened to him.

[Aeolun]

You also don’t want them to continue fucking you over for years making billions, then get a solid settlement of a few million.

[duxup]

Indeed, Federal prosecutors tend to be pretty effective, and the amount of data in these corporate cases that needs to be reviewed is enormous.

[nothrabannosir]

The quote formatted for mobile:

> But I wonder: if there was a way to reduce the duration of the cases, would that reduce the impact on whistleblowers?