{"id":857,"date":"2014-09-23T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/?p=857"},"modified":"2014-10-07T11:07:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T15:07:25","slug":"5-questions-with-professor-adriaan-lanni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/09\/23\/5-questions-with-professor-adriaan-lanni\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Questions with Professor Adriaan Lanni"},"content":{"rendered":"

Product: Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Lanni\"<\/a>

Professor Adriaan Lanni<\/p><\/div>\n

HLS Professor Adriaan Lanni came to us with a vision for her criminal adjudication class: teach students the ethics and discretion of prosecution. Rather than explain landmark examples of prosecutorial discretion herself, Professor Lanni wanted students to find their own guiding principles, experience the tradeoffs and pressures of decision-making, and form opinions about the prosecutorial system. It was a great opportunity to use a case study.<\/p>\n

She chose the case of Aaron Swartz, for which the prosecution faced significant criticism. Aaron Swartz was an Internet prodigy, known for his work as an adolescent on the RSS 1.0 web feed and his early co-ownership of the social new website Reddit. At age 24, Swartz was charged with various counts of computer fraud and abuse after systematically downloading the JSTOR online journal database from the MIT campus. His pre-trial process took years, with multiple plea bargain offers, a superseding indictment, and mounting attorney fees. Swartz declined the plea bargains, preferring to defend himself in court; however, weeks before the trial was slated to begin, Swartz committed suicide.<\/p>\n

Professor Lanni shared with us her experiences writing and teaching a case study, particularly such a polemical one, for the first time:<\/p>\n

What inspired the case study?<\/em><\/p>\n

AL: <\/strong>I was teaching criminal adjudication for the first time and wanted to experiment with new teaching methods, including a case study. Studying Supreme Court doctrine does not really get at the policy, practical, and ethical issues that arise in the charging and plea bargaining process. Many textbooks offer a series of very brief fictional problems to cover this material; I thought an in-depth case study might be a good entry-point for a discussion of prosecutorial discretion.<\/p>\n

What challenges and opportunities did the case writing process present?<\/em><\/p>\n

AL: <\/strong>Having a detailed case study made it possible for a much more detailed and nuanced class discussion, and put everyone in the class on an equal footing. If I hadn\u2019t had a dedicated case writer I probably would have assigned a short magazine article, which wouldn\u2019t have provided enough information to really dig into the prosecutor\u2019s options at various points in the case timeline.<\/p>\n

One challenge was that many members of the class had strong views on the Swartz case, which made it more difficult to elicit a balanced discussion.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for case writers and teachers in the legal classroom?<\/em><\/p>\n

AL: <\/strong>A case study involves a significant commitment of class time, and a fair bit of reading for students about a single case. It is important to make sure that the learning goals are well-suited to a case study and that the individual case is rich enough to sustain a 50- to 90-minute class. The Swartz case worked well, but I don\u2019t think I would want to do more than 1 to 2 case studies in any course, like criminal adjudication, that is primarily devoted to studying an area of doctrine.<\/p>\n

How did the students react to the case study?<\/em><\/p>\n

AL: <\/strong>The student feedback was very positive. The students liked the change of pace, and appreciated the opportunity to discuss in detail a case that they had read about in the newspapers.<\/p>\n

What, if anything, would you do differently next time?<\/em><\/p>\n

AL: <\/strong>I would work harder ahead of time to ensure a more balanced discussion. The first time I taught the case, I moved back and forth between inviting student discussion based on their pre-assigned roles (prosecutor or defense attorney) and inviting student comments in propria persona<\/em> on policy issues. Given how politically charged the Swartz case is, in the future I will probably have the students remain in roles for the entire discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Product: Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case HLS Professor Adriaan Lanni came to us with a vision for her criminal adjudication class: teach students the ethics and discretion of prosecution. Rather than explain landmark examples … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5482,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88580],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-study-program-blog-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4CR8M-dP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":811,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/06\/18\/do-prosecutorial-tactics-optimize-justice-reconsidering-discretion-in-charging-and-plea-bargaining\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":0},"title":"Do Prosecutorial Tactics Optimize Justice? Reconsidering Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"June 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"New Product: \u201cProsecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case\u201d In January 2011, an Assistant United States Attorney in Massachusetts\u2019 Internet and Computer Crimes Unit was assigned a case from MIT. For months, a guest on the MIT computer network had been downloading much of the online\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Study Program Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Case Study Program Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/case-study-program-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Aaron_Swartz","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2014\/06\/Aaron_Swartz-500x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":868,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/10\/07\/ethics-in-hindsight-the-nation-reflects-on-aaron-swartz-case-prosecutorial-discretion\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":1},"title":"Ethics in Hindsight: The Nation Reflects on Aaron Swartz Case, Prosecutorial Discretion","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"October 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"New Product: Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case (B) The B case, now available, is an epilogue to Part A, the main discussion stimulus. Part A\u00a0asks participants to consider the prosecutorial decisions and ethics of Aaron Swartz\u2019s case. Swartz was a 24-year-old Internet prodigy, charged\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Study Program Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Case Study Program Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/case-study-program-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Aaron_Swartz","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2014\/06\/Aaron_Swartz-500x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1099,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2016\/04\/05\/the-classroom-experience-prosecutorial-discretion-in-charging-and-plea-bargaining-the-aaron-swartz-case-a-and-the-battle-for-unocal-case-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":2},"title":"The Classroom Experience: Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case (A) and The Battle for Unocal Case Studies","author":"Alec Villalpando","date":"April 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Post by Logan Sawyer, Visiting Associate Professor of Law, Harvard Law School \u201cThat class was awesome,\u201d and \u201cYou should definitely do that again next year,\u201d were the first things I heard from students after the two case studies I taught in two different classes, at two different institutions.\u00a0The classes were\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2016\/03\/Singer-4-1024x681.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2016\/03\/Singer-4-1024x681.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2016\/03\/Singer-4-1024x681.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":963,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2015\/04\/28\/can-we-have-justice-in-an-imperfect-world-dsk-case-study-shows-fractured-relationship-between-justice-and-justice-system\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":3},"title":"Can We Have Justice in an Imperfect World? 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In her two sections of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Professor Jeannie Suk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2015\/04\/10869.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":554,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2013\/09\/17\/the-boy-who-cried-balloon\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":4},"title":"The Boy Who Cried Balloon","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"September 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"New Product: Balloon Boy On October 15, 2009, Richard and Mayumi Heene called 911 in a panic. Their son Falcon had gone missing, as had a large metallic helium balloon housed in their backyard. Local and federal authorities conducted a highly publicized rescue effort for the \u201cUFO,\u201d but when the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/problem-solving-workshop-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":828,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/07\/15\/3-new-teaching-notes-available-in-time-for-fall-classes\/","url_meta":{"origin":857,"position":5},"title":"3 New Teaching Notes Available, In Time for Fall Classes","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"July 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking to teach decision making, leadership, copyright, or problem solving this fall? 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