[Topolomancer]

Not sure whether this is your intention, but your comment comes across as lacking some empathy. Had he been convicted, he would face 1 Million USD in fines as well as 35 years in prison. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be under such pressure. Please do not make light of the complex motives that drive people to suicide.

(and if someone is reading this who is mentally in a bad place right now, please seek out some help: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/)

[DoreenMichele]

My recollection/understanding is that the authorities/court system locked up his bank account, he was legally not allowed to say that while trying to crowd source funds to help pay his attorney and cope in the midst of the case so people jumped to the wrong conclusion and lambasted him rather than support him and his suicide followed shortly on the heels of that (like within a day or two, iirc).

He was painted into a corner with seemingly no way out.

People who are suicidal frequently have intractable problems and are frequently treated like they are merely crazy. The best way to help people who are suicidal is to not be dismissive of their very real problems and, of possible, actually be helpful. But as a baseline, don't act like it's all in their head. That actively makes it harder to solve intractable personal problems.

[tzs]

> Had he been convicted, he would face 1 Million USD in fines as well as 35 years in prison.

That's a common misconception, largely due to the ridiculous way the DoJ writes its press releases.

Each Federal crime carries a range of possible prison time. What you actually get depends on a large number of factors, such as how much damage you caused, whether or not your crime was a drug crime, past criminal history, and many others.

When the DoJ writes press releases they just add up for each charge the maximum that it is theoretically possible for someone to get from the crime if they hit all the factors that push for longer sentences and none of the factors that push for shorter sentences.

So when they arrest you for crime X and write their press release, they don't actually tell what you, the first time offender who committed a mild instance of the crime with no aggravating factors and several mitigating factors is facing. No. They tell what the Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler of whatever activity you were doing would face for crime X.

It is even worse, because they actually even exaggerate what Voldemort or Moriarty or Hitler would actually face, too! If a person is charged with multiple crimes from the same underlying act, say crimes X, Y, and Z, and is convicted of all of them the crimes are grouped together into one for sentencing, with the sentence for the group being the sentence you would have received for whichever for X, Y, or Z you would have gotten the longest sentence for if that was the only one you were convicted on.

Here's a good article on this in general: "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS." [1]

Here's a couple articles specifically on the Swartz charging.

This one covers the charges themselves: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 1: The Law)" [2]

This one covers the prosecution, including a look at probably sentencing: "The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 2: Prosecutorial Discretion)" [3]

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

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

[3] https://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-a...

[notthemessiah]

We get that the justice system threatens people larger penalties to see what charges they can get to stick, but they also use it to force a plea bargain. In Aaron's case, the prosecutors were adamant that Aaron should get at least 6 months of prison, and would not offer any plea bargain that did not include this half a year of jail time (Ortiz wanted to make an example out of him). The fact that the prosecution was seeking jail time at all is utterly insane. This is why Aaron chose to fight.

[n8cpdx]

Aaron didn’t choose to fight. He chose to kill himself. Which turned him into an unreasonably glorified martyr whose case people still talk about to (and on) this day.

[notthemessiah]

You couldn't be more wrong. The plea bargain was offered early in the case, Aaron thought he could fight it, but the case went on too long, and he ran out of money to fight it. Only after he had absolutely nothing left for the fight did he take his own life.

[modo_mario]

Why do you think he and his causes are unreasonably glorified?

[Topolomancer]

Thanks for the clarification; these are the comments I go to HN for.