> It's not unreasonable to choose death over living under an unjust and corrupt regime, whose laws you don't agree with.

Who said it was? I said it wasn't murder. Aaron killed himself, that is an indisputable fact of the case. No one agrees with all the laws of the country, anywhere on the planet; that's life everywhere. He didn't choose to die over the corrupt regime; he chose to die to avoid facing jail, he was just fine living in the corrupt regime before jail looked like the final option.

> Personally, I would rush head on into the barrels of guns pointed at me, rather than live with my head bowed and my spirit broken.

Brave words, but they're just words; people react differently when actually faced with such circumstances.

> Brave words, but they're just words; people react differently when actually faced with such circumstances.

And that is why as a prosecutor you should better be careful than sorry (though I don't know whether Carmen Ortiz is the latter).

That's not a prosecutor's job to worry about the mental state of a defendant. It's their job to prosecute the case if the evidence is there, and it was. The defense can worry about the defendants state of mind, that's part of their job. This prosecutor was overzealous in the charges being made, but there's no doubt they had a strong case against him and he was guilty of a felony.

I think it's just in sharp contrast of how say top officers of major banks that laundered 378.4bn USD in drug money were treated (Wachovia, Wells Fargo ...).

I agree, but going after wealthy people is much harder than going after a college kid; that's a whole issue all its own.

>It's not unreasonable to choose death over living under an unjust and corrupt regime, whose laws you don't agree with. In fact, there are many people in the world today who make that very choice.

You know we have this thing called planes right? In no way was Aaron forced to stay in the US.