Message from Tim Burners-Lee, creator of HTTP, on the death of Aaron Swartz

The lead up to this is has been a sad road. As documented by Lawrence Lessig of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Aarons death is in part due to the bullying tactics of the United States prosecutor Carmen Ortiz.

The following is a quote taken from this discussion on HN:

From the article: For in the 18 months of negotiations, that was what he was not willing to accept, and so that was the reason he was facing a million dollar trial in April — his wealth bled dry, yet unable to appeal openly to us for the financial help he needed to fund his defense, at least without risking the ire of a district court judge.

Remember how this came out just a week ago?

Once again we see the true nature of criminal prosecutions: the prosecutor's tactic is to bring outrageous charges that could result in decades in prison, bankrupt the defendant one way or the other (seizing assets or making the case so complex it bleeds him dry), and then use that to coerce a guilty plea. It's no wonder that trials by jury are becoming so vanishingly rare that even the Supreme Court has written that "in today’s criminal justice system, the negotiation of a plea bargain, rather than the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for a defendant." [1]

Do we really want to live in a country where your right to a trial is an empty right?

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-444.pdf