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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

if it turns out, after all, that MIT was in some way responsible -- that's still very unclear

In the Boston Globe, Aaron's lawyer says that a suggested plea deal with probation and no actual jail sentence was rejected by MIT, and that played a part in the prosecutor pushing for harsher judgement. If there is any truth in that, then there is evidence that MIT did indeed play enough of a role to have some of the responsibility here.

We won't have a full picture of what their role might have been until Abelson's report comes out. Which likely will take a good deal of time.

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So MIT should have had reasonable cause to believe that there was a risk of suicide should they decide to prosecute a case? And that makes them responsible? Is that a road we want to go down?

You seem to be reading something into what I said that I did not say.

It is my belief that MIT as an institution should have a policy on the appropriate severity of response to actions such as Aaron's. They need to for the simple reason that they have made a conscious decision to choose to make themselves a natural lightning rod for this type of incident. Therefore they help set the bar for what an appropriate reaction should be.

My further belief is that if this policy is set in accord with the bulk of opinion of MIT students and alums, then we'd have had a different result in this case.

This does not mean that they should be held to be at legal fault for the suicide. However if you have even a passing familiarity with root cause analysis you'll know the value of habitually fixing systemic issues you identify which are several layers removed from the ultimate failure.

I am cautiously optimistic that Abelson's report will address this issue.

No the issue is that they decided to prosecute the case.

Correction. MIT did not prosecute the case.

They brought in the feds. There is evidence that they asked the prosecutor to go hard on Aaron. But the prosecutor is not directly affiliated with MIT.

Do you have a link to the evidence? My current understanding is that MIT didn't want Aaron to avoid jail. Is that correct ?

The evidence is comments by Aaron's lawyer as quoted in the Boston Globe.

See http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity-deficit... for the article.

The "evidence" is bullshit. Look at exactly what is said.

AS, for all of whatever it was good that he brought the world, was mentally ill. For whatever reason, he did not receive the help that is freely available in our society. (There was a lot more available before Reagan cut it to shreds, so he could pass on big bucks to his rich cronies, but I digress...)

THAT is the true tragedy here. Depression is a totally, totally fucked up brain function anomaly. People who have not experienced it are simply clueless and should STFU. The REST of you: get help. Get Help - Now!

IANAL, but there were two parties that could escalate this to federal court, JSTOR and MIT. JSTOR didn't, so it is probably MIT. Suicide aside, there seems to be a gross injustice in this case (35, hell even 5 years for a crime that had little to no impact on either JSTOR or MIT, seems ludicorous).

Of course not, MIT administration's alleged behavior was terrible even in absence of Swartz's suicide.

Yes, if that turns out to be accurate I will be very angry with MIT. While I would like to trust the defense lawyers (including Lessig, who I look up to a lot) on this, they are admittedly not the most unbiased parties, and out of a desire for fairness I'm withholding judgment until more facts come out.

I am absolutely looking forward to Abelson's report.

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