Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> it would be odd to feel sick over someone else getting punished for defrauding so many others of their life savings.

that's a pretty extreme strawman of my position. Don't you think there's some spectrum between 25 years of prison time and no punishment? And if you don't, then how would you feel about flogging or hanging as I mentioned above? Does it seem odd to you for someone to feel sick about a public hanging in the town square, even if the person is guilty of the crime?




> some spectrum between 25 years of prison time and no punishment

That isn’t the range at hand. SBF got something between what prosecutor and defender asked and much lower than theoretical max.

  Max:        110y
  Procecutor: 40-50y
  Defender:   6.5y
  Actual:     25y


Very lenient and it doesn't set a deterrent at all for people like SBF. Basically you can go off the charts on the sentencing guidelines and commit 3 counts of perjury in court and still have the same Expected Value as if you stopped the crime at a smaller scale


Not sure I agree. 25 years in prison is life-ruining. Even if he ultimately gets out in 10 (or whatever), his life will be forever changed for the worse because of this, even with rich parents who will get him back on his feet after he's out.

I think the kind of person who would see this sentence and think "eh, no big deal if that happens to me" would probably still not be fazed if he got a significantly longer sentence.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: