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Comment by jstevens85 | Hacker News Reader

If he accepted the plea bargain of six months, then the case wouldn't have gone to trial, avoiding the excessive legal fees. I don't understand the timeline, but had he accepted the plea bargain, is it not possible that he would have already served his sentence by now?

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Maybe. The point is that you shouldn't submit to 6 months of federal prison without trial or appeal, all the money loss for the two years in the case and your life ruined by the felony counts records for using a script to download files you already have legal access to. At worst all there is to this is trespassing, on an open campus on an open network etc etc.

You're probably right, you shouldn't, but unless you offer up a better suggestion for a law system, it is it what it is.

How about the one the rest of the civilized world uses? Which is: not mixing politics and prosecution.

Check out the British version of government prosecutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prosecution_Service

Where "controversial" is "oooh, should we change the name?!?".

The american system is one of the worst in western society, granted, but the British one is not that much better at all. Some claim is worst. I never had the misfortune of having to try that on my skin but heard from friends and family.

How's the system in Iceland ? Or Norway ?

Yeah, no more crazy law and no bargaining on future lives.

> avoiding the excessive legal fees.

From all the information that I've seen so far it looks as if the legal fees were plenty excessive already.

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