> announced today that Shane E. Pitman, age 31, of Conover, North Carolina, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by the Honorable James C. Cacheris, United States District Judge, for conspiring to violate criminal copyright laws as the former leader of the oldest game software piracy ring on the Internet.
Btw: Coming from Europe - this whole thing about doing a public press release about each sentenced person things seems a bit off. There's a balance to be struck - and I'm honestly not quite sure we're doing it right in northern Europe with our extreme privacy for convicted people...
For whatever it's worth, the disposition of the case on PACER says the sentence was reduced to 12 months. There's not much of a docket to read, because it looks like he immediately pled out.
> and I'm honestly not quite sure we're doing it right in northern Europe with our extreme privacy for convicted people...
The result will be that convicted people are additionally punished and shunned by society after their release. That's essentially just inviting vigilante justice and also makes it more difficult to live a crime-free life. But I suspect you knew that.
I wonder what balance you have in mind? Right now only famous people are the exception in northern Europe - their crimes and the result of their trials are generally published.
However in many of these countries the results of trials of ordinary people also often appear in publications, they just aren't mentioned by name. It seems to be mainly consumed as entertainment and publishing names is not really needed - any society that needlessly ruins people lives for the entertainment of others would be sickening.
You may ask: how to do background checks then? In many countries you can ask the police to certify that you did not commit certain kinds of crime. Your employer can't just check somewhere. These kinds of certifications are often required for jobs involving large sums of money and/or working with children, but cannot be required for other work.
I would guess a lot of that happens in the public for transparency reasons; if one reporter (or otherwise just curious citizen) notices that (as an example) the Honorable Cacheris starts sentencing more harshly than their peers, or letting off CEOs in their courtroom with a "stern talking to," then that would be worthy of an investigation
I'm sure the Justice Department's point of view of press releases is one of deterrence: "do the crime, do the time" or perhaps even "your tax dollars at work"
