[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.

[Rebelgecko]

I don't think they're saying never. If you look at the recommended guidelines[1], for a crime like Schwartz's the maximum could theoretically be many years, but the guidelines would suggest a sentence between 0 and a few years (he'd be in the first column assuming he didn't have any criminal history. Depending on what modifiers come into play his "offense level" could be as low as 6[2]. Maybe it would be more than that, but he certainly wouldn't hit level 40, which is what it would take to get a 30+ years sentence. Even though a judge can technically give a higher sentence than the guidelines, it's fairly rare— it happened less than 3% of the time in 2017.[3]

depending [1]: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu... [2]: See §2B1.1 at https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2018-guidelines-manual/2018-... [3]: Table 8 at https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...

[towelr34dy]

Remember the original comment only said that people plea because of the big threat. It is a big threat. And given the fact that you probably wouldn't take a 1:33 chance on Russian roulette, it seem it is a big threat to you.

But not when it is on others. Then it's fine 'because low probability'. In fact, many of the apologists for what happened go as far as to conflate in a single post low probability with no probability.

The double think is amazing.

[tzs]

The 3% who were sentenced above the guideline amount were not chosen at random. They were people who had specific factors in their cases that allowed for an above guideline sentence.

These are factors such as causing a death, causing significant physical injury, causing extreme psychological harm to your victims beyond that one would expect from the crime, abducting people, causing property damage beyond what is taken into account by the guidelines, using weapons during the crime, or torture.

Swartz did not have any of the factors that could end one up in the 3%.

[towelr34dy]

Ah tzs again. Let me quote you:

"lot of reporting said he faced 30 years... Actually, he was looking at maybe 6 or 7 years if things went as favorably as possible for prosecutors."

So let me ask again, last time you didn't answer: Is the chance of a 35 year sentence for Aaron 0%?

No? Then do the intellectually honest thing and admit you are wrong. Your correcting somebody by saying wrong things. And then doubling down on it.

Low probability is not 0%. Whatever the probability was, it was real that they could have given him 30 years. Unlikely? Yeah. But I'll bet you wouldn't play Russian roulette at those odds; whatever they may be.

[secabeen]

>Low probability is not 0%. Whatever the probability was, it was real that they could have given him 30 years. Unlikely? Yeah. But I'll bet you wouldn't play Russian roulette at those odds; whatever they may be.

But that's the question. The probability is not 0%. It may be %0.01, or %0.001. Can either of us find any existing cases where a defendant with Aaron's background received a 33-level sentence increase? I would propose that that has never happened in cases with similar circumstances to Aaron's. If you can find one, I'd be interested in the citation.

In the absence of any examples, my argument is that the chance of a 35 year sentence is not functionally different from 0%, and Aaron (and any other defendant in this situation) should have made decisions based on the 99% of sentences they were actually likely to receive.

One last note: you mentioned playing Russian Roulette at those odds. Russian Roulette normally has a 16% chance of death. I wouldn't play RR at 16% odds. Would I play it a 0.001% odds? Probably, presuming the benefits of playing RR were of significant value to me.

Aaron's chance of a 35 year sentence was not 16%. It was also not 0.0%. It's somewhere in-between, and unless you have evidence that shows otherwise, I'd personally guess it was below 0.01%, and his choice of suicide remains a tragic one. YMMV.

[towelr34dy]

Read the other apologists. They quote a 3% deviation from sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing guidelines for Aaron were 6-7 years. A single wire charge on max penalty could be 20. All you need is one judge who saw WarGames to want to make an example out of the kid.

I don't know what the probability is. You don't either. Likely no one did. But that probably has weight.

It's disturbing: the callous indifference to that weight by those who question the exact kilos from an arm chair expert point of view.

This whole thing has parallels to other situations:

A Powerful Group is responsible for a system that perpetrated an injustice.

Members of the powerful group are confronted with the injustice. Members have the following reactions:

Denial (high dissonance)

Disgust

Apologists

Apologists do the same thing: They minimize, deny, question and speculate.

What apologists of all kinds don't realize is that even if they are right, they are wrong.

The callous indifference shown, instead of the guttural understanding of something wrong being needed to be made right... is what is so hard to understand. Even if your argument that the official numbers are overblown by x%.

[Rebelgecko]

I literally said the exact opposite of what you claim I said. Sometimes when I get riled up online it's helpful to take some deep breaths and come back to it later.