They refused to sign-off on any deal that did not involve Jail time. This was THE one point that weighed more on his mind than any else per the recorded statements of his partner.

MIT's pig-headedness in this aspect really destroyed any respect I had for that institution. JSTOR made a much more reasoned statement http://docs.jstor.org/summary.html - Clearly indicating that they had NO INTEREST in any further prosecution (since they were the primary wronged party).

Aaron was facing a cumulative maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.

The roommates of one of the Boston bombers was only facing 25 years in prison[1] if found guilty of helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop, fireworks, and a backpack in the aftermath of the bombings.

I understand it's not a straight comparison, but no matter how I try to re-arrange those numbers in my head, I can't reconcile the impact to punishment.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombings#Dias_K...

It's a natural response to a suicide; we try and search for something to blame. But unless you argue that MIT should have known Aaron was mentally unstable, saying MIT "caused" him to kill himself is illogical. People who commit suicide may desire to because of what they feel about their lives, but the final decision is one's own.

It's sad that it takes a death to bring attention to the IP issues that Aaron's trial had raised.

Those big numbers come from simply taking the maximum possible sentence that can ever be given out for each charge, and adding them all up.

There are two things that make that unrealistic in most cases. First, the defendant is almost always charged with several similar or related crimes that have mostly the same elements. If convicted on more than one charge from such a group, they are only sentenced for one of the convictions.

Second, the sentence takes into account the severity of the particular acts that constitute the crime, and the prior criminal record of the defendant. To get the maximum possible sentence you'd need to have gone way beyond what ordinary violators of that particular law usually do, and you'd have to have a serious criminal history.

What Swartz was actually facing if he want to trial and was convicted was something ranging from probation to a few years, depending on just how much damage the court decided he caused.

If he took the plea the prosecutor was offering, he was facing up to 6 months.

Details with citations on the above are available at [1] and [2].

In the dozens of discussions of the Swartz case we've had in the last year here, the 35 year or 50 year myth has been repeatedly busted. Yet it keeps coming up in each new discussion--often from people who were in some of the previous discussions! Why is it so persistent?

[1] http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/

[2] http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-agains...

If anything, I'd think screwed up laws and an overzealous prosecution are the real issue here, and I'm not sure what pointing fingers at MIT accomplishes.

"United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz, in the midst of a prosecutorial tear that would lead the Globe to name her 2011’s Bostonian of the Year, held up Aaron’s indictment as a warning to hackers everywhere."

The article hinted at the fact MIT ran an "Open network" which ran counter to the charge of "unauthorised access". MIT should have commented on that in their report.

MIT worked with the prosecution to help build there case, that's fine, but talk about "neutrality" as that clearly isn't.

Anyone arguing that MIT didn't do anything wrong, I would say, just isn't rational.

But we still haven't gotten causation (Are they to blame for Aaron's death?).

There is always some people who say that suicide is only the victims fault, no one else. But do you apply that to people being tortured? Or people with no hope to live out their life as they thought they would. Was it the jews fault for committing suicide rather than face the camps?

Now applying that extreme analogy to the US legal system, and in particular, the plea bargain system... isn't it the same dynamic? They want to make the proposed outcome so bad that you take an easy way out. In the process they destroyed parts of your life (in Aaron's case it was his friendships, girlfriend, family, wealth).

Thus, aiding this system (the prosecutor) (as MIT did) certainly deserves some of the blame, no?

I never realized Norton agreed to talk with the prosecution against Aaron's wishes.

I am on the end of a civil suit. It's nothing big, but I have never felt so helpless. I can't imagine what Aaron was feeling.

I don't know if MIT was complicit, but a few things suprised me--50k charge to public libraries.

Swartz's death was the result of institutional failure. The criminal justice system and more broadly the US government are very sick institutions if their standard operating procedures can result in a tragedy like this.

Aaron Swartz did not attempt to obscure his face. The DOJ just chose a screenshot of when the helmet happened to pass over his face, making it falsely appear as though he was. That's malicious on the part of the DOJ, and that's slanderous and sloppy journalism on the part of Janelle Nanos and Boston magazine.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/swartz-video/

Zero jail time.