In my limited view of US cases, it often seems prosecutors let off lightly anyone that will testify in return for their whale. Sometimes feels it's more symbolic justice that way than real.
There isnt much value in incarcerating additional people simply for the sake of punishment/revenge. The other individuals are unlikely to cause future harm.
People might scoff at mid-level fraud “doers” getting a slap on the wrist deal for their testimony, but the alternative where you go full scorched earth and fail to get a conviction would be terrible for the defrauded and the system beyond them. Capitalists (i.e. the owners of capital, the investor class, in this case) love a system where you don’t really have to quadruple check that a financial document is valid. Who can blame them? I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a world where something like FDIC doesn’t exist or where fraudsters can easily rip people off with low chances of jail time if/when the operation goes belly up.
The idea is that everyone knowingly involved goes to jail. This way others presented with opportunity to go along with such fraud /know/ there is a very, very real consequence. Rather than "CEO could go down for this but what the hell, I'll go along with it."
It's not retribution, it's justice.
There's a YouTube channel called "Insider" and they have a series of videos called "how crime works" which are part interviews with past-criminals about how their particular scheme worked:
https://www.youtube.com/c/thisisinsider/videos
The videos all have extensive credits and one thing was that very few of the participants actually considered potential punishment/incarceration beforehand.
To this end, perception of the likelihood of being caught is far more important than the severity of punishment when it comes to deterrence.
What prosecutors can do is recommend a sentence and let the judge know that a criminal cooperated. Cooperating typically reduces a criminal's sentance. Ultimately, Federal sentences are decided by three things:
A) The laws of the United States. These can be changed by the United States Congress.
B) The sentencing guidelines (https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines)
C) Prison Capacity (At some point, you cannot send anyone else to jail because the prisons are full)
The prosecution does decide charges to bring forward, so the prosecution can decide to only charge defendants with lesser charges if they cooperate to catch bigger fishes.
If Judges stopped going along with prosecutor's deals, then nobody would be making deals ever again. Usually, judges do honor deals made with the defendant.
You lose the chance to convict a criminal, you lose your face and the chance to see him behind bars.
You really want the government to decide to re-arrest and re-try you indefinitely if you are acquitted of a crime?
The double jeopardy rule is not stupid.
All of Europe, India, all of the Americas, and any other country that inherited English common law are among the majority of countries on earth that have this protection in one form or another.
Polish law translated: "No criminal proceedings shall be initiated if another criminal proceeding in respect of the same act committed by the same person have been validly completed (ne bis in idem, res iudicata) or are already pending (lis pendens)[19] If criminal proceedings are initiated in contravention of this principle, the proceedings shall be discontinued."
Double jeopardy rule doesn't prevent appeals to a higher court which is what happens in Italy frequently, and it doesn't prevent retrial when there are new legal facts or a defect with the original case.
I don't know why you are so unwilling to research this when it is a very accepted legal principle.
Are you sure that you understand what double jeopardy is? That the government cannot retry your case once a final ruling has been made. Simply put: you can't have two separate trials for the same crime. You can still have the case pass through separate courts and judges through appeals process since many systems allow review of a conviction before it is considered "final".
In all Europe you can be retried if new evidence is found or the previous ruling/trial had formal issues or misproceedings.
In US, this is really not the case, even if new evidence is found it you cannot retry a defendant.