Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who defines 'unreasonable'?
Hopefully not who, but what. Such as, for starters, the "doesn't affect anyone else" principle.
Killing people affects people.
Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
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Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#72Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#73This quote of the judge as he delivering his verdict is so crazy (he is reading from Ulbricht's journal): Two days later on April 8 you write: "Sent payments to angel for hit on Tony76 and his three associates. Began setting up hecho as standby" -- I have no idea what that is -- "refactored main and category pages to be more efficient."
Not to nitpick, but the judge was female :)
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#74"Forrest said because the case was so widely publicized, a more severe sentence could deter similar crimes in the future." As others have noted, I doubt the judge spent 100 hours making this decision (that's two and a half person-weeks full-time). I don't condone what Ulbricht did but I don't think his sentencing was rational.
If you want examples of irrational sentences they are sadly not hard to find: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/107830/
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#75Forrest was horribly biased against the defense. The prosecution's case was extremely problematic - resting on a chain of flimsy evidentiary and legal assumptions that would never have survived proper judicial scrutiny. The appeal will expose serious irregularities and hopefully overturn the decision.
Forrest spent a year at the Department of Justice before being confirmed as a federal judge in 2011. Her handling of the case was pay back to her sponsors at the DOJ.
From the transcript: "No drug dealer from the Bronx selling meth or heroin or crack has ever made these kinds of arguments to the Court".
Her comments smack of racism and classism. She reveals her implicit belief that since illicit drugs are associated in the media with oppressed minorities or less affluent communities, Ulbricht isn't entitled to such an "uppity" defense. She clearly can't fathom any possible reason why anyone might be opposed to prohibition and mass incarceration.
The transcript: "What Silk Road really was was a social market expander of a socially harmful drug that we have deemed in our democratic process to be unacceptable"
Except polls show that most Americans are opposed to US drug policies, even for "hard" substances like heroin [1]. Any discussion about drug laws that doesn't acknowledge its racist roots or the commercial interests involved is missing the point.
[1] http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2014/04/new-pew-poll-confirms...
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hopefully not who, but what. Such as, for starters, the "doesn't affect anyone else" principle.
Killing people affects people.
He was never charged with killing anyone, nor convicted of it. The charges were all dropped, probably all trumped up charges to smear Ross.
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#77Forrest was horribly biased against the defense. The prosecution's case was extremely problematic - resting on a chain of flimsy evidentiary and legal assumptions that would never have survived proper judicial scrutiny. The appeal will expose serious irregularities and hopefully overturn the decision. Forrest spent a year at the Department of Justice before being confirmed as a federal judge in 2011. Her handling of…
Ultimately, judges are God when you are in the court room, or treated as if they were. In reality judges are human beings with human problems. We should replaces judges with AI. AI is much better at acting like God than fallible human beings with their biases and their legal systems which are basically like religions.
Ultimately though the guy was guilty and should have spent 5-10 years in prison.
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#78[deleted]
Please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
Re: Unsealed Transcript Shows How a Judge Justified Ross Ulbricht's Life Sentence
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Untrue.. The first several pounds of shrooms on the Silk Road were grown and sold by Ulbricht. He claims credit for "Several Kilograms" in his diary.. Several kilos is well into the tens of thousands of dollars range.. http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-the-fbi-found-on-r...
I can understand the harm of opiates and stimulants, but are psychedelics really that damaging to society? And if he grew them himself it wasn't contributing to harmful suppliers...
I personally know of two people in my social circles who committed suicides on psychedelics. You can definitely argue that such a thing might have happened even without the psychedelics but I'm convinced that being in that altered state of mind pushed these people over the edge (literally in one case).
I'm personally pro-legalization of a lot of drugs. I do not want to close myself off to the clear negative effects of said drugs though. I think we should all remain honest and proportionate about them.