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by jhaglund
4861 days ago
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Except A without B isn't a felony worthy of federal charges. Our legal system's standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt" not what a child would infer from the evidence. The fact that Aaron had not committed B despite having the time and ability to should have left the prosecutor with a reasonable doubt that such a violation was imminent. |
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The standard for bringing charges is not "beyond a reasonable doubt." That's the standard for conviction. It's up to the jury to decide whether such a violation was imminent or not.
In any case, that's not what I was getting at. I was talking about the validity of the reasoning method, not what it proves or does not prove in this specific case. If it is a crime to do A in furtherance of B, that is to say with intent to also do B, it is totally valid and common-sense to use someone's past writings as evidence of what their intent after doing A was.
There are layers here that you're collapsing together. You can believe that Swartz's writings were insufficient to show intent to distribute the copyright works while agreeing as a general principle that it is valid to use someone's writings to establish what someone's intent might have been.