> Right, because getting a judge to approve a warrant to arrest someone for assault is trivial if you have a witness, because that's the kind of thing that is clear and obvious.
And, more to the point:
(1) its easy to convict on that kind of assault (delays are more often due to prosecutors not starting a case they dob’t feel adequate confidence they can win than prosecutors being unable to meet the much lower bar of probable cause),
(2) prosecuting on such a case early is much less likely to foreclose other charges or obstruct attempts to identify and action on other crimes or recoverable property tied to them.
> (2) prosecuting on such a case early is much less likely to foreclose other charges or obstruct attempts to identify and action on other crimes or recoverable property tied to them.
Please go into this more.
Lets say an omniscient person can come up with 40 charges that could be brought against SBF. You the prosecutor only know of 3 of them right now. Why can't you charge SBF for the 3 you have, convict them, and while SBF is in prison figure out the other 37? While SBFs in prison I bet its 1000% times harder for him to hide stuff from you too.
With programming, it's commit early and commit often. Why is the prosector trying to make a giant pull request over 3 years to shove through in a year? Target the low hanging fruit for a quick commit and get the restitution process going.
> You the prosecutor only know of 3 of them right now. Why can’t you charge SBF for the 3 you have, convict them, and while SBF is in prison figure out the other 37?
If any of the 3 would be lesser included offenses of any of the 37, those of the 37 for which that would be true could not later be charged, because the application of the federal Constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy forecloses this.
For state charges, this is may be even more restrictive, as many states exclude not only conviction in the same or separate prosecutions for “nested” offenses, but also preclude separate prosecutions after a conviction for the same conduct, or in some jurisdictions even for distinct conduct that forms part of the same transaction.
> With programming, it’s commit early and commit often
Criminal justice is very much not programming, and even to the extent they are loosely analogous, initiating a criminal prosecution isn’t analogous to a commit.
EDIT: To make the reasoning more explicit, since even initiating such a prosecution impacts liberty interests, there a very significant reasons for rules against repeated add-on prosecution that states have, and there are even stronger reasons (because criminal penalties for greater offenses necessarily encompass any lesser included offenses) for the federal rule (also applicable to the states) preventing cumulative punishment for both a lesser included offense and an offense within which it is included.
Programming doesn't have a fifth amendment double jeopardy clause. Imagine if your debugger locked you out if you failed to fix the bug on your first try.
Prosecutors are conservative because our justice system is (for very good reasons) tilted strongly against the state, in favor of the accused. We've collectively decided that it's better on the whole to have some criminals go without punishment than to tolerate innocent people in jail. (Pause while everyone points out that innocent people get locked up all the time, which is true, but it's still something the constitution is trying to prevent)
And, more to the point:
(1) its easy to convict on that kind of assault (delays are more often due to prosecutors not starting a case they dob’t feel adequate confidence they can win than prosecutors being unable to meet the much lower bar of probable cause),
(2) prosecuting on such a case early is much less likely to foreclose other charges or obstruct attempts to identify and action on other crimes or recoverable property tied to them.