If that is the case, then she is BAD at her job. You can't have it both ways. Either way, let everyone know that she is either bad at her job or overzealous.
As a former criminal defense attorney, I will say that based on what has been published about her on HN and other websites she's actually very good at her job as a prosecutor, precisely because she is overzealous. In fact, if her fellow prosecutors are to be believed, she's one of the best federal prosecutors still working for the government--after all, she runs the Boston federal prosecutor's office, easily one of the top 4 most prestigious postings a lawyer can hold in the executive branch of the federal government.
From my point of view, she is no different from Jack Dorsey, or Steve Jobs, or all those other techheads who are revered for their overzealous and overbearing behavior. The difference is that most people on HN don't, can't, or refuse to understand what her job is and the legal and ethical obligations that come with it.
To put things in perspective: you probably feel the same way about this prosecutor as I feel about the guys running AirBnB.
Of course, Dorsey, Jobs, and the founders of AirBnB have produced products that millions of people use voluntarily and find useful. Ortiz and Heymann by contrast decided to threaten a kid with 35 years in jail for downloading pdfs, bankrupting him and driving him to suicide. The repeated claims that there is no such thing as "prosecutorial discretion" (!) and that they were just doing their "job" (!!) are just ludicrously false and Kafkaesque. The US Attorneys in this "prestigious office" knew well what they were doing. They chose to bring this case -- they could well have chosen to dismiss it and focus on one of the many serious violent crimes that happen in MA every year -- and they must be dismissed if there is to be any justice.
Somehow one is supposed to be outraged about someone renting out their spare bedroom to make ends meet, but not disturbed by an unelected official railroading and bankrupting Swartz? Indeed, to even defend this lack of accountability while attacking or derailing any measures to hold them accountable? This worldview is absolutely topsy-turvy and incomprehensible; insofar as it has any consistency, it seems to be pure apologia for untrammeled state power, obedience to authority, and rule by lawyers.
> she's actually very good at her job as a prosecutor, precisely because she is overzealous.
While we're on the topic of things HN participants have trouble understanding, you may have a perspective on the legal system to add to the discussion, but you've apparently got something of a blind spot toward what the case you're building looks like outside that perspective.
At least, insofar as you're arguing that the legal system respects and the political system advances the careers of prosecutors who are overzealous (which, by definition, is disproportionate zeal).
> Jack Dorsey, or Steve Jobs, or all those other techheads who are revered for their overzealous and overbearing behavior.
This is like arguing that because some drug addicts are great artists, people should respect drug addicts.
I think it's pretty rare that you find people revered for overbearing and overzealous behavior itself -- when you find that behavior alone, in fact, you find people generally recognized as "assholes."
It's the other stuff that people like Jobs and Dorsey bring to the table that earns them respect and gets people lining up to work with them.
So if you want to make a comparison here that's going to hold up to any real scrutiny, you'd better be able to hold up to the world what Ortiz and her fellow overzealous prosecutors are contributing to the world besides their inordinate zeal -- what their singular gifts and rare qualities are.
Particularly in the moment when the most high profile product of that zeal is that seems to have contributed to someone's death.
You spent most of your comment defending that zeal instead, though. I don't know what that says about the strength of the case you hinted could be made about the details of a prosecutor's job and the legal and ethical obligations that come with it.
> Particularly in the moment when the most high profile product of that zeal is that seems to have contributed to someone's death.
No offense to Aaron (who is by all accounts even smarter than I) but many, many people get charged with Federal crimes (even those with 30 year sentences) and don't go and kill themselves. Especially when they're as innocent as everyone describe him to be.
In some of those cases the defendant gets to use it as an opportunity to thumb their nose at the prosecution the entire way along (a kind of "reverse bully-pulpit"). It really sounded to me that Aaron had built a good case for himself once they dropped the trespassing charge, especially in light of everything that's come out since his suicide. So I don't understand it...
Just out of curiosity, what are the other three of the top 4 most prestigious postings a lawyer can hold in the executive branch of the federal government?
If that is the case, then she is BAD at her job. You can't have it both ways. Either way, let everyone know that she is either bad at her job or overzealous.