Stratfor Hacker Could Be Sentenced to Life, Says Judge 388
dgharmon writes with this excerpt from rt.com: "A pretrial hearing in the case against accused LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond this week ended with the 27-year-old Chicago man being told he could be sentenced to life in prison for compromising the computers of Stratfor. Judge Loretta Preska told Hammond in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday that he could be sentenced to serve anywhere from 360 months-to-life if convicted on all charges relating to last year's hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a global intelligence company whose servers were infiltrated by an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Hammond is not likely to take the stand until next year, but so far has been imprisoned for eight months without trial. Legal proceedings in the case might soon be called into question, however, after it's been revealed that Judge Preska's husband was a victim of the Stratfor hack."
Re:Life? (Score:5, Informative)
Well now you know what the judicial system thinks.
Re:Nullified (Score:2, Informative)
If he had been held for 8 months without being charged with a crime, then yes, you could say that his constitutional rights have been violated. But I don't think that's the case here ....
Missed from post, Calls for judge resignation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nullified (Score:5, Informative)
There are fixed time limits. And yes people get released all the time when the prosecution isn't ready to move forward. Generally it is the defense that wants more time. Just to pick a famous example Donny Rogers who was arrested and held on a murder charge had to be released because he went for the speedy trial and the state couldn't process the evidence in time.
Re:Nullified (Score:5, Informative)
It's not uncommon for corporations to put their cases in courts that best suit them, they just hope you'd never find out and even then, there is rarely any repercussion for anyone involved in the scam, it's just retried under a different judge that best suits them. You can see that not only with patent cases in Texas but similar discoveries have been made in most of the high-profile RIAA cases where it has been discovered that judges were directly involved with RIAA companies.
The way it works in the US, they can even fund entire campaigns anonymously (through PAC's - see how Stephen Colbert did it) for a specific judge (as they are voted in) to take the bench while they are building a case.
The US government in all branches all the way to the President, Congress and Supreme Court is simply bought and paid for already 4-8 years in advance. Clinton, Bush, Mittens, whoever is even considered to be next is already on the pay roll.
Re:Nullified (Score:5, Informative)
The way it works is you need to see what the prosecution is going to bring against you, which they have to disclose to you in advance of the trial. Then you have to construct a defensive strategy based on what you now know the prosecution has. Demanding a speedy trial is risky because although you would give the prosecution less time to build their case against you, you would also deprive your lawyers of the enough time to mount a good defense. It's only advised if you know the prosecution's case is weak.
Also, in many cases the defendant is on bail anyway. That's not the case with Jeremy Hammond. He was denied bail. Given the sentence he could be facing (and his general disregard for authority), he's a flight risk.
National Security? Give up the drugs! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nullified (Score:3, Informative)
Libertarians believe humans should be free to do whatever we want as long as it does not bring harm to other humans.
Grow up.