Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 641 posts

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#381

Post by mpyne »

hurin wrote: post #365
mpyne wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> 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". By that logic relatives of deceased drunk-driving victims should be testifying against bars and liquor store proprietors as well. I think while most expected this kind of outcome, the comments comi…

> By that logic relatives of deceased drunk-driving victims should be testifying against bars and liquor store proprietors as well.

Uh, should I be the one to tell you that such relatives often do that very thing?

But at least bars and liquor stores don't often go about torturing and murdering their employees, so at least they have that going for them.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#382

Post by tptacek »

[deleted] wrote: post #379
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…

[deleted]

Why not hire or even sell hitmen, you can't get into more problem if they get you

A bit of a strange argument to make in this particular case.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#383

Post by themeek »

gknoy wrote: post #376
themeek wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I really follow because the comics didn't describe anything that presumably would be entrapment. Is anyone here a lawyer in this area of law? I don't really trust webcomics.... But let's talk about this alleged hitman situation. Didn't the police come up with the idea and create the situation where a third of a million dollars appeared to have been stolen and a volunteer appeared to defect with informati…

> Is anyone here a lawyer in this area of law? I don't really trust webcomics.... I think you can trust this one. The author of the webcomic is a lawyer [0]: " Yes. I went to Georgetown Law, where I was an editor of the American Criminal Law Review. I started out defending juveniles in D.C., then was a prosecutor with the Manhattan D.A.’s office for about 9.5 years, first in the Special Narcotics office and then in t…

Okay sure. :). Thanks.

Unfortunately I can't ask webcomics questions. Looking for answers to questions above.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#384

Post by srdev »

jMyles wrote: post #242
Spooky23 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ordered the killings of 6 people. Even by the bloodiest of bleeding heart standards, contract killing isn't some victimless crime.

Not everyone is convinced this happened.

That is because a lot of people are simply ignoring the evidence available since they have an ideological stake in Ross's non-violence. The balance of probability here is that Ross intended to kill 6 people and fucked it up.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#385

Post by Natsu »

themeek wrote: post #358
Natsu wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find a nice guide as to what is and is not entrapment here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633 There are a lot of misconceptions about what is or is not entrapment. A lot of things like lying about not being a cop when under cover, putting out a bait car, or just watching you commit a crime without warning you it was a crime are not entrapment and the reason why is explained in the guide. It's only entrapment w…

So in this case wasn't a crisis situation (there being a defector with SR secrets) fabricated by the police and a third of a million dollars disappeared? Would this sort of thing count as doing something to overcome resistance? It's not likely that an anonymous person offering to 'help take care of the situation' would have enticed him - he needed a scenario that compelled him and this scenario was fabricated.

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 of jail free card to criminals who were somehow fooled by the police.

So the real question is not whether the police gave him a reason to hire a hitman, it's whether he ever would have hired an assassin at all.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#386

Post by whoopdedo »

Have any of the carding forum operators been sentenced to life in prison? Or any prison time? Or even been arrested?

I say this as someone who just found out he's had $500 stolen from him. Of course I half blame the banks and credit card processors who allow card numbers to be passed around so easily.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#387

Post by MichaelGG »

vectorpush wrote: post #115

The fact that he explicitly paid for the murder and torture of former employees and their roommates is enough for me to feel like life in prison is fair. Yes, an actual murder is a worse outcome than a murder-for-hire that never materialized, but if you're a rich and sophisticated drug-kingpin attempting to commission torture and murder to secure your criminal enterprise, the punishment should be the most severe. Mur…

Murder is terrible, sure. But if it was to save thousands of innocent vendors and customers, then perhaps it's justified. The government does exactly that every day. It's Ross's fault he allowed anyone into that position in the first place. But an extortionist was directly trying to ruin the lives of many people. It's not entirely different than shooting an intruder in your house.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#388

Post by sjy »

baddox wrote: post #292
redthrowaway wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still be charged with soliticing a minor if you happen to be a star on To Catch a Predator. Just because the minor in question never existed doesn't mean it's not a crime.

I think that is also silly. If finding yourself on To Catch a Predator is soliciting a minor, then by that logic the showrunners are purposefully endangering a minor.

No, because the producers are aware that the stand-in is not really a minor or in any serious danger.

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#389

Post by dragonwriter »

[deleted] wrote: post #379
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…

[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 trying to hire a hitman to eliminate problems.

So, I think that this case stands for exactly the opposite proposition than "hiring hitmen won't get you into more trouble than restricting your crime to just drugs".

Re: Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

#390

Post by jMyles »

srdev wrote: post #384
jMyles wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is convinced this happened.

That is because a lot of people are simply ignoring the evidence available since they have an ideological stake in Ross's non-violence. The balance of probability here is that Ross intended to kill 6 people and fucked it up.

Still, I prefer for the evidence to be presented in an open forum, under oath and subject to rebuttal, before I will believe it.

And yes, I think I have a sort of psychological "stake" as you say in Ross' non-violence.

Post reply on HN