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The person Ross hired as a hitman was an undercover agent who had been befriending Ross online for over a year.
This may have qualified as entrapment which could be why he was not brought up on charges for this. Still, IMO it is reasonable to bring that up as a character issue.
http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-wa...
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Ok, he wasn't sentenced for murder but it was "factored in" in another sentence. Wow.. I'm not sure there is a more serious crime than murder though. Wouldn't it be that the other crime was factored in under murder?
> Ok, he wasn't sentenced for murder but it was "factored in" in another sentence Its not "murder", its "soliciting murder in the furtherance of a conspiracy". Which is not a separate crime, but manner in which the crime of conspiracy is achieved. (Soliciting murder itself can be charged as a crime, and Ulbricht is charged with that, too, though those charges were not tried with these charges.)
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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.
This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction - but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked away forever. Go Team 'Murica....
Ross Ulbricht, who is tragically falsely accused of running Silk Road, is a hero for challenging the War on Drugs by definitely not selling drugs, and a nice guy.
Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people. An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences. People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resi…
Life without parole seems excessive. I think they're trying to make an example out of him due to how hard it is to detect and prosecute this type of crime.
People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of a murder for hire. - http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/
Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of human nature and the nature of the game.
One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.
I don't know enough about this story to have an overall opinion, but this particular exchange made me angry: > His lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, in submissions to the judge, argued that the website’s “harm reduction” ethos made it safer than traditional drug dealing on the street. > But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for han…
Bear in mind that prosecutors have a professional duty to zealously argue the government's case just as the defense lawyers have a duty to zealously argue for innocence or lenity of their clients. Unfortunately judges no longer have that much discretion to weigh the competing arguments because of the mandatory sentencing guidelines Congress came up with. It has since been established by the Supreme Court that the gui…
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I don't believe the death penalty was ever a possibility, following Kennedy v. Louisiana ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana , "the power of the state to impose the death penalty against an individual for committing a crime that did not result in the death of the victim is now limited to crimes against the state (e.g. espionage, treason).")
The full quote was: "Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity , which are offenses against the State." (emphasis added)
Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for different types of people. An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good time, and usually get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent consequences. People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so resi…
Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one cannot control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.
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That's very unlikely to work, now what?
> That's very unlikely to work, now what? Try harder, like by working to convince the public that such a right should exist, so that other people join you in your effort to convince Congress to change the law.