With backing from the late Ted Kennedy, Carmen Ortiz became the first Latina US attorney in Massachusetts. She was sworn in by Eric H. Holder Jr., the nation’s first black attorney general, before hundreds of applauding judges, dignitaries, and lawyers.
Today, those throngs of delighted supporters are gone as Ortiz faces harsh scrutiny for prosecuting Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old Internet activist who died last month from an apparent suicide. A House committee is investigating whether prosecution of Swartz for allegedly using computers at MIT to gain illegal access to scholarly papers went too far, as family members charge.
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I suggest she look to the private sector for employment in the future.
This case was not the only overreach for the US Atty's office. Carmen Ortiz's office has notoriously leaked to the press (the Globe in particular) on any number of investigations. Sadly, people, innocent people, and their families have been hurt, reputations damaged and justice unserved. Carmen Ortiz and her staff have gotten great press (until now) but have done a poor job. Now that karma has finally kicked in to expose her shortcomings, I can have no pity on her.
Carmen Ortiz has little to worry about. Just like Eric Holder and President Obama, she will benefit by the (lack of) intelligence of her opponents. No one pays attention to law professors except law students. The lawyers who represented Mr. Swartz failed to negotiate an acceptable plea deal, failed to convince Mr. Swartz to accept the most favorable outcome of his case, and now want to point the blame at others instead of their own failures. Sadly, Aaron Swartz died due to an untreated mental illness.
Do you have some kind of inside knowledge the rest of us don't? I ask because you are either better informed than everyone else, or jumping to conclusions.
I certainly have no inside knowledge, just what I read in reputable media. I also believe in climate change, evolution, and that Barack Obama was born in the United States -- same sources.
worried that Ms. Ortiz has been "vilified" ?? Swartz is dead.
there will be few who rush to Ms. Ortiz's defense since she is a bully and everyone knows it.
how refreshing that affirmative action is no longer a shield for grown up school yard bullies, if it ever was.
of course, this is only a faltering start to the problem of bully DAs, powered by absolute and total legal immunity for the consequences of their actions or inactions. this will remain a recurring problem unless and until there are liabilities which flow from vicious or cruel official misconduct.
The very notion of "prosecutorial discretion" carries the sense of adopting neither a hard stance or a soft one to apply to all cases or to develop one's reputation on either basis. It is about exercising discretion in each case. That seems not to have been done in this case. It is not sufficient to say that he suffered from depression and yet fail to treat that fact as one which might affect his response to her office's proposed sentences. "Discretion" was essential in this case to avoid an undesirable outcome for the defendant and for justice in our society.
Has anyone ever asked the question that perhaps Aaron Schwartz should have been sensitive to the consequences of his actions? When things get so twisted that when someone does something clearly wrong and then as a consequence commits suicide, society is somehow to blame, then we're in real trouble morally and ethically.
"Clearly wrong?" He violated the _terms of service_ of an internet provider. Oddly enough, I don't agree with you that the terms of service are an ethical code.
He did break the law, to my mind to the degree warranting a slap on the wrist, $1000 fine or something. He took research papers that were funded by taxpayer dollars because he believed that, having been funded by the taxpayer we shouldn't have to pay to read them. Not exactly a gangster.
Ortiz need Holder to stand behind her? Who is standing behind Holder? After the Fast and Furious fiasco, following so many other Holder fiascos (Gitmo still up and running, the insane attempt to try the 9/11 terrorists in Manhattan, the hilarious search for another stateside jurisdiction willing to hold the trials and thereby paint a target on itself, Holder has been an endless source of entertainment, he's got enough egg on his face to make a dozen souffles) he can barely defend himself, let alone Carmen Ortiz. She persecuted Aaron Swartz. Swartz invented Reddit, for God's sake, he was smarter than me, smarter than you, way smarter than Joan Vennochi or Carmen Ortiz, and the world needs all the genius it can get. Carmen Ortiz is Inspector Javert in pantyhose. She is unworthy of the office that she holds, and if she had one ounce of decency she would resign immediately and spend the rest of her life doing penance for the evil that she has done.
Well for one thing, this Swartz guy was not smart enough not to get caught. And, I am sorry but in the large grand scheme of things, the co-inventor of Reddit is not a god so stop it, you look silly.
What did you ever invent? Oh, right, you invented squat. Nuts to you.
If there is an argument here, it is with federal law--duly enacted by Congress. Our prisons are grossly over occupied because our society is "tough on crime," which, I believe, is a false and horrendously expensive attitude. What do we want to do here, people? Everyone is prating about a young man they have never met, could not know, and did not help while he was alive (Uncle Harvey Silverglate notwithstanding). I have much sympathy for Mr. Swartz--over his illness and tragic suicide. Cyber crime, however, is the most pernicious danger we face and will face. Call me back after you find out someone has hacked into your email account "just to look around" but "didn't take anything," or when you find a stranger sitting on your couch, someone who just wanted to admire your decor.
Aaron Swartz never went near anyone's private email account. He downloaded _academic articles_ from an online service. "Cyber crime" is a ridiculous idea as "analog crime." Who was hurt? What were the consequences? What were the motivations?
Recently, a truck driver with multiple violations killed a cyclist. He was not indicted. He is not threatened with jail time.
In what world do these two legal events and the consequences under law make any sense?
I agree with your general feelings about "cyber crime". However...this particular "crime" was hardly worthy of the sentence Ortiz demanded be imposed. The term "punishment should fit the crime" comes immediately to mind. This is a problem with our criminal justice system itself. We jail folks at a much higher rate than any other "free" nation on Earth. Here was a terrific example where creative punishment could have been meted out. This young man...a genius in the field of things "cyber" could have simply been made to put his expertise to work in making our cyber spaces safer for all. Instead...he's gone...lost to all of us. What a waste.
It's also important for those who break and enter private property to :liberate" intellectual property to think about the possible consequences of their actions.
Aaron had every right to download each article he downloaded. The violation he was accused of was to the terms of service agreement. If he had sat at a computer and downloaded the articles one-by-one, he would not have been accused of a crime.
So the situation is far more nuanced than you acknowledge.
Kate, obviously to most he didn't have that right. Why did he break in? Isn't breaking and entering a crime? And, cut the "nuanced" junk. It's not, OK? He broke into a place he knew he didn't belong, that in of itself is a crime (minor, but a crime nonetheless).
So if a criminal commits crimes, refuses a soft plea deal and kills himself it's the prosecutors fault?
He did not commit a crime. Innocent until proven guilty. The prosecutor over-charged him so that he'd be so terrified that he'd go for the plea bargain, and the prosecutor would never actually be faced with having to _prove_ anything.
One problem is the abuse and overuse of plea bargaining itself. Yes. It IS a prosecutors fault when one abuses such broad powers. Ortiz went well beyond what was needed. What use is jailing someone like this when there were better alternatives available? We can't find space for all our "criminals" as it is.
Ortiz had enormous discretion, which she appears to have used unwisely but entirely within the normal range of US Attorneys' behavior, so her unusual background is less important than the fact that prosecutors are more likely to be praised than criticized for this type of behavior. Very few victims of prosecutorial overreach have the kind of visibility and defenders that Aaron Swartz had.
When has it become the US Attorneys job to be made aware of mental health issues before they can decide on prosecuting? It is easy for families to place blame, rather then accept responsibility. It has become quite obvious that Swartz had issues with depression. Lets make it very clear, he was involved in a criminal action. Whether he benefitted or not is not relevent. Hacking is a scarey issue that needs to be addressed. The damage that can be done in the internet world is unimaginable. Even now there are government agencies working on the next war scenerios being a World Wide Web battle. So before we say hacking is not a crime, let's think about the reprecussions.
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While this is a unique defense, I would suggest that Ortiz was the scapegoater vs. the scapegoted. Most reasonable people are not suggesting that Ortiz was responsible for this kid's suicide, but she does have to own up to aggressive overeaching to cement her risisng star. By any benchmark, it is hard to square a so called "plea bargain" of guilty for 13 felonies and a 6 month sentence for a kid who fiddled with a computer for no personal gain. Also, the people who were hacked said "forget it." Why didn't Scwartz get offered the chance of a misdeamor plea bartgain like the city official who tampered with the ballot boxes for his personal gain?
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"But given all the celebration over her appointment, the extent to which she has been vilified seems unfair."
Unfair? Hardly. We have lost a genius, this generation's Steve Job or Bill Gates because some ambitious, overly aggressive DA thought it would snag her another notch on her belt. It may be unfair that she is the DA caught when the music stopped...because of Aron Schwartz, we now all know how tenuous all our freedoms are. That if the DA has something on you (do you have any idea what is in the service agreements you click o.k. to?) and decides to come down on you the power he or she has is truly frightening - accountability, no justice, no trial.
May this case continue to shine light on the justice system and its out of control DA's office.
Geniuses should be spared from prosecution? Only average people and idiots are required to follow the laws? What a country!!!
Gates? Jobs? Sorry, more like the current generation's Richard Stallman.
You're making the case that she was "locked in" by sentencing guidelines, but she had great discretion in sentencing? Which is it?
What was the purpose in threatening him with 30 years if it wasn't to force him to take a plea deal and deny him a fair trial?
Sorry Joan, this smacks of working overtime to rewrite history and resurrect your fallen hero.
Holder, Patrick, Ortiz, Obama and many pushed with the affirmative action programs have a sensibility that is divergent from the acceptable social norm. There appears to be missing the bravery or courage to take a stand on reason or compassion. Rather, it is extreme, hold-fast, King-Kong rule, with the mind-set that they are in total control. This is seldom the case and they don't understand the nuances.
Mr. Schwartz committed a crime; his attorney has claimed he was mentally ill and needed help. Well, where was that help? His attorney? His parents? Nothing. So now it's Carmen Ortiz's fault that he committed suicide. Sorry I don't see it that way. He committed a crime, was not properly represented by counsel and/or was given not the best legal advice and unfortunately took his own life. Now everybody wants to make the prosecutor the scapegoat.
Even without the suicide, you have to question the inflated thread ( 30 years if you don't plea bargain ) that denies people a fair trial.
Uhh, inflated THREAT!
The Attorney General has a responsibility to bring charges against those that break the law. By all rational accounts, the law was broken in this case. The AG doesn't unilaterally bring charges, make judgement, and decide on punishment. We have a legal system that allows for fair trial. Blame it on the defense attorney's if you don't feel the case outcome was just.
Dis-satisfaction with a law is not adequate excuse to break the law. We are in big trouble if we have difficulty living in a society with laws and have a preference for anarchy.
Instead of going after the Aaron Swartz's of the world, how about the DOJ going after the scores of people who drove our economy into a ditch, criminally not civilly?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/bailout-neil-barofskys-adventures-in-groupthink-city-20130206