This article neglects to mention the disproportionality of the sentence Aaron was threatened with.<p>Suppose you were a 1960's civil rights activist staging a sit-in. Suppose the worst you were expecting was a couple hundred dollar fine and spending the night -- or maybe the week -- in the county lockup for misdemeanor trespassing.<p>Then an ambitious prosecutor looking for another substantial case to win goes after you with all her resources, disrupts your life for a year with an incredibly intrusive investigation, and then threatens you with a 30-year federal sentence.<p>I'd imagine a substantial number of actual 1960's protestors would reconsider their decision if the likeliest outcome is a ruined life, rather than a short-term disruption of your life that will go away fairly quickly.