Especially since the Malfoys have one of the most valuable resources for winning any legal conflict; enough money to hire a whole bunch of very expensive and very good lawyers.

 

Not a good assumption to make after their tough times with Voldemort and friends. Lawyers cannot save you when you were already knee deep in the previous regime's deeds.

 

I'm sorry, did you just try to claim that casting the Imperius Curse on a goblin is illegal, as though they were humans?

 

Even if they're not human and don't have the same rights in many regards, I expect the law would frown on mind-controlling the people who control the banking system out of pure self-interest. While Harry probably gets a pass by virtue of wartime necessity, normally using mind control to break into Gringotts to rob a vault would be massively illegal.

They saved Lucius after the first war, and that was with a case built entirely on lies. Draco has some actual facts to back up an argument for innocence/massively reduced punishment.

If we want to take Denazification as a good historical parallel, it wouldn't be hard to make an argument that Draco got pulled into this before he was even an adult was just a young follower who had no idea what he was getting into and was in way over his head (Especially since that seems to have been Rowling's intent with the character).

 

I'm sorry, did you just imply that casting the Imperius Curse on muggles is illegal?

 

No. The purpose of prison should be to rehabilitate people. Since there is no reason to believe Draco was a threat to anyone by the end of the series, he had no reason to go to prison. I'm very against the idea that we should imprison people just for the sake of revenge. It would be good if the Malfoys had to pay some sort of fine though.

 

Did he not perform the equivalent of rape, by casting the imperious curse on Madame Rosmerta. If he was convicted of casting the imperious curse on another human being on his own accord, then I think that he should be punished according the law. He was also a card carrying member of a terrorist organisation, involved in conspiracies to commit murder, and people have been tortured in his basement, while he was of age.

 

I believe that prison would've been a decent punishment for him