[corin_]

At best you could make a case (and I'm talking you making a case here, not talking from a legal point of view) for involuntary manslaughter, not murder with intent, unless you can show that they knew prosecuting would lead to his death.

[oleganza]

So it is okay for some people to threaten other people with jail when some files get copied? Do you know what the "jail" means? Humiliation every day, statistically guaranteed rape and possible murder.

[mpyne]

As far as I can tell he was never charged with any variant of copying files.

He was charged with unauthorized access to a computer network and wire fraud.

Given your idea of what jail means for rich white kids like Aaron though, I'd just like to recommend that you actually look into the U.S. prison system (at worst you'll find out what's actually wrong with it and not have to make stuff up).

[oleganza]

If he declines to go to a nice little jail, he'll be shot down when trying to defend himself. So the threat of jail is an ultimate threat of murder, right? Do you think it is appropriate measure for unauthorised access to a computer network? Especially after the fact, not while he's busy doing that.

When some guy comes to your porch and does not go away, what would you do? Would you try to push him out on the street, or you will chase him with a gun in attempt to put him in a cell? What would you do if the same guy already stepped on your porch and broke your chair? Will you threaten him with death? Or you will ask policemen and court to do that dirty job for you?

[corin_]

You've just used logic to prove that we have a death penalty for every crime that exists.

[oleganza]

In the realm of government-imposed law? Yes. There is also lynching, but it generally does not occur.

Outside the government people use peaceful dispute resolution organizations, reputation systems, rating agencies and insurance companies.

[corin_]

I'm not arguing that what they did was OK, just that it was not "murder with intent". That requires them to have had his death as their goal, I'm not aware of any reason to believe this to be the case.

[oleganza]

They had clear intent to kill the guy if he tries to defend himself while someone in a uniform attempts to drag him to jail against his will. The fact that he got depressed and killed himself is irrelevant. Initially, there was a clear threat of murder on the part of prosecutors.

Lets say, I steal a wallet from you. You ask policeman to catch me and provide some evidence that I indeed have stolen the wallet. Now policeman chases me and presses to return the wallet. I do not return the wallet. Policeman pushes me to the car, I try to protect myself physically, he takes out a gun and kills me.

If you understand this before calling armed policemen to catch me, how can you "not have intent of murder"? This is exactly what you want: you want to threaten the guy with murder (by yourself or via 3rd party) so he does what you want.

If you are interested in how you can resolve conflicts without being a sadist or murderer, then there are a lot of books on the topic (I recommend http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx). However, many people simply blindly assume that by using external force they are "clean" and that the violence is the only way to solve problems when people disagree. Which is, of course, total bullshit and complete intellectual corruption. Because if you have a hard problem and instead of trying to solve it, you take out a gun and then claim that this is the "solution", you are worse than the stupid soldiers. Because you use your intellectual capacity to produce a false justification and gain brutal support from people less smarter than you.

[kamaal]

>>unless you can show that they knew prosecuting would lead to his death.

Which it very clearly has, or more precisely in this case it can be described as "Abetment to suicide"