[ramanujan]

He had no money left, was already bankrupt after defending himself to this point...Besides, this is the wrong question - on what earth should it even be possible for a prosecutor to threaten thirty five years and a felony conviction for this sort of thing? That kind of sentence is for attempted murder, it is a few years short of life in prison. This was wrong, this was not right. Prosecutions like these mean that we lose our humanity.

[rprasad]

Congress wrote the law making those acts a crime and imposing sentencing guidelines, not the USDOJ.

[thenetwork]

The DOJ lobbied for these laws and they routinely lobby to make sentencing more severe. They make the recommendations and congress implements.