Also, your idea that prosecutors should have no discretion in prosecution is something you should reconsider. You say that the mitigating circumstances should be considered at sentencing but not in deciding to prosecute. If prosecutors didn’t have discretion they would prosecute every case brought to them by anyone. It would be a waste of time, further overburden the courts, and end up in unjust outcomes. Lawn not mowed and neighbors complain? Convict him of creating a hazardous fire environment within city limits (or whatever bogus laws would apply to such a thing). Under the legal limit for alcohol but you missed a stop sign? Murder conviction. Etc.
This hang-em-high stuff can go too far. Prosecutors have to use their common sense . . . and compassion.
That is precisely why I picked the “gray” case of someone who would evoke our sympathy rather than a clear cut case of premeditated murder to write about.
There was a Navy jet crash in San Diego recently. The plane malfunctioned but the air controllers botched the handling of the pilot. Should we feel compassion for them?
Justice is blind. And without blind justice there is no opportunity for true compassion.