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Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

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Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#411

Post by soup10 »

cryoshon wrote: post #97

FTA: "Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”" Can't help but counter this claim by stating that buying drugs via Silk Road is probably not very destructive in any sane analysis, especially compared to street level drug dealing. There's no corners to hold, no rivals to fight with territory over, no deals to go bad, no real access…

Edit: I didn't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end

Seriously. The way he invokes the words "our social fabric" makes it out like Forrest was personally affected. It's easy to imagine Urlbricht rehabilitating and becoming a productive member of society but instead his life has just been destroyed. It's not justice and it's not the right thing to do.

If one person decides to put another person in a cage for the rest of their life, it's clearly a horrendous stomach turning crime. It's no less horrendous when the justice system does it. But we've decided that it's a necessary evil that society requires. We should be working as a society to minimize the necessary evil and rehabilitate people but we're not and it's a tragedy.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#412

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #389
[deleted] wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> When the court give out harsh punishment, they also de-incentivize the next person from limiting the scope to only drugs. [...] Why not hire or even sell hitmen, you can't get into more problem if they get you. One of the factors in the life sentence was that evidence was presented in the trial that Ulbricht did not limit the scope of his enterprise "to only drugs", and that elements of the enterprise included tryi…

[deleted]

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#413

Post by armadafoot »

jjcm wrote: post #24

It's interesting. On one hand, if a leader of a traditional drug distribution network landed a life in prison sentence, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. With Silkroad though, I'm actually convinced by the defendants argument: that it provided safer, more trustworthy drugs to users. I've had friends who've died from purchasing bad drugs at raves from people who were looking to make money and run. In one situati…

An important thing to remember is that SR did NOT just sell drugs. They also sold hacking tools, identity theft kits, credit card fraud kits, and weapons.

It was not a harm-free marketplace. It was basically 'whichever criminal shit made him money' marketplace and drugs happened to top the list.

LOL @ getting down voted by Libertarians for a COMPLETELY TRUE statement that they wish wasn't true because it fucks up their bullshit narrative.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#414

Post by Natsu »

themeek wrote: post #397
Natsu wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to see how being blackmailed regarding the details of one's illegal activity could count as entrapment for murder. It seems to me that DPR came up with murder as the 'solution' to this problem, even if we claim that the problem itself was entirely manufactured. Entrapment defenses are only supposed to prevent innocent people from being coerced by police into committing a new crime, not to provide a get out…

According to Wikipedia: Blackmail is an act, often a crime, ... Essentially, it is coercion involving threats of ... of criminal prosecution. Similar searches for the legal distinction between extortion and blackmail consider blackmail a form of coercion. Given (A) that blackmail is coercion (psychological pressure), and (B) coercing someone into committing a crime is entrapment. Would (A) and (B) then not imply that…

I think the law guide I linked it to would file this under "there is no chutzpah defense." He had legal options that did not include "hire a hitman" ("do nothing" is a valid option) and he had a big hand in creating the problem to begin with, or there would be nothing to blackmail him with in the first place. And the state didn't corrupt him, he was already leading a criminal operation when they set out to catch him. You don't get to protect yourself from a lot of things you otherwise would when the problems are caused by your own illegal activities and you'll see this again and again with the other defenses, if you read more of that guide. It refers to those scenarios as a someone trying to invoke the "chutzpah defense," following on from the old story about a child who murdered their parents requesting mercy because he is an "orphan."

The overarching point here to protect people who weren't committing crimes from being dragged into them ("corrupted") and the rules are set up to avoid protecting criminals who were merely fooled by the police into exposing their criminal nature.

Nobody made him hire a hitman. They gave him a reason to, but they didn't make him do it. If he needed protection from a blackmailer, he could have turned himself in as well as the blackmailer.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#415

Post by smoyer »

smhenderson wrote: post #13

That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go "global" with everything. I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit the cr…

I agree that's it's simply too harsh. I share a bit of his Libertarian views, although as I've grown older I've realized that there's no way the Libertarian philosophy could ever form the paradise many of its practitioners describe.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#416

Post by jsmthrowaway »

timsally wrote: post #367
homulilly wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. I agree that drug sales should be regulated but that doesn't in any way make sentencing someone to life in prison for running a website any less fucked up.

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns ( https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea... ). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one. When thinkin…

That dichotomy is clever, almost convincing, and plainly obvious in its manipulative structure.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#417

Post by geetee »

geetee wrote: post #126

You could make an argument that the alleged murder for hire attempts were simply self defense. The consequence of being exposed is life in prison, and I don't think any of us can say with certainty how far we'd go to avoid life in prison. It's not like he was trying to have innocent bystanders murdered. If selling drugs was not a crime, there would be no opportunity for blackmail, and nobody to silence.

I knew it wouldn't be a popular angle, but maybe some counterpoints along with those down votes please?

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#418

Post by deciplex »

deweller wrote: post #152
Cantremeber wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, it happened multiple times. Even if no one was actually killed the guy still tried to have multiple people killed.

allegedly tried to have multiple people killed. The prosecution brought this up at trial but he was not charged or convicted of this in the criminal trial.

Eh, the evidence for it does seem pretty damning, even accounting for the fact that Ulbricht hasn't had the opportunity to defend himself (although, given the showing at the actual trial, perhaps he's better off). I would bet that he's guilty, though not even at 2:1 odds.

That's not to say that, strictly speaking, this isn't a miscarriage of justice - it is. No one should be in prison merely for selling drugs or facilitating the sale of drugs. But, Ross Ulbricht is likely a danger to society.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#419

Post by Zancarius »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #416
timsally wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those. The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns ( https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea... ). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one. When thinkin…

That dichotomy is clever, almost convincing, and plainly obvious in its manipulative structure.

I'd greatly appreciate if you could elaborate, because I'm finding myself confused as to what you're getting at, and I have no idea which point you're addressing. I think I follow, but I'm not convinced my interpretation is correct.

Honestly, I can't tell if this block is because I'm conflating the context of the greater discussion (the Ulbricht trial) with the more nuanced points of timsally's comment.

Thanks!

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#420

Post by jabscam2013 »

mpyne wrote: post #339
jamoes wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was charged with murder-for-hire in a separate jurisdiction, and he hasn't faced trial for those charges yet. Today he was sentenced to life in prison for a number of victimless crimes.

He was also charged in a separate jurisdiction, yes, but murder-for-hire was actually a component of one of the charges he was accused of in this trial. Either way enough relatives of deceased drug abusers testified at sentencing, and enough heartless chat logs of DPR's were introduced as evidence, to rather eviscerate the idea that Silk Road was completely "victimless".

No it wasn't. Here are the charges that were involved in this trial.

http://freeross.org/the-case-the-goal-and-why-this-matters-2...

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