> On the last day of trial, Serrin Turner, the NY lead prosecutor, addressed the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire allegations occurred.[28] One charge of procuring murder was originally filed in October 2013 in a separate pending indictment in Maryland (which was later dismissed in its entirety in July 2018);[8] the other five allegations were never filed.[38]
> stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire allegations occurred
That makes it sound like the prosecutor said that the contracts didn't occur. The way it's worded in the source Guardian article is "The prosecutor says he does not believe any of the killings have occurred."
In other words the prosecutor is contending that Ulbricht took out 6 unsuccessful contracts.
I get an error 500 on the website so I can't read the argument but quoting Wikipedia:
>None of the procuring murder allegations were part of Ulbricht's indictment in New York, although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.
[...]
>On the last day of trial, Serrin Turner, the NY lead prosecutor, addressed the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire allegations occurred. One charge of procuring murder was originally filed in October 2013 in a separate pending indictment in Maryland (which was later dismissed in its entirety in July 2018); the other five allegations were never filed.
I don't really know enough about the American justice system to understand exactly what went on there but apparently the judgement was not solely based on the nonviolent charges?
This is the country with the "war on drugs" that have 10+ year sentences to largely minorites convicted of possession of a few grams of cannabis so this really shouldn't be that surprising.
Focusing on the crimes being nonviolent seems like a poor tactic. Look at the outrage in about no one going to jail for financial malfeasance, for example.
But I have 3 particular issues with the sentence here:
1. The government has moved him twice across the country from New York to Colorado then Arizona. The Wikipedia article mentions his mother moved to Colorado to be closer to him. That seems cruel.
2. Why a high security prison that's going to put him in with actual murderers and violent offenders?
3. Life plus 40 years does seem like overkill. I mean look at the sentences for the Elizabeth Smart kidnappers by comparison.
At the end of the day though I have limited sympathy. Like what did he expect to happen?
His sentence seems fair according to the standards of the US justice system, at least from my non-lawyer’s perspective. He profited enormously from drug trafficking, and received a sentence in line with other convicted cartel leaders. Is this site advocating for freeing all such similar cartel leaders? If not, why not?
And yes, he was not convicted of the solicitation for murder, but in the US justice system considering this secondary behavior is perfectly legal. I don’t even think it’s all that uncommon or unethical. It’s just the more converse of giving someone a lighter sentence for an otherwise unblemished life.
Honest question: How much profit did pharma execs make fully knowing their drugs were abused and sold illegally en masse? I'm interested in how people think they aren't culpable? Oxycodone is a household name in drug abuse, it kills thousands every year. All those people seem to live very good lives off it's sales.
Attempts to make less addictive pain killers is an uphill battle for profitablity in the existing environment.
Not defending Ross Ulbright here either, these people should be in jail too.
> but in the US justice system considering this secondary behavior is perfectly legal
Out of interest, do you know if that's a fact in the Ulbricht case i.e. the judge said she was taking it into account?
I'm not sure it matters hugely in the sense that the mandatory minimum for Continuing Criminal Enterprise is life and he was well within the bounds of that. Just curious.
That seems a bit harsh given that he wasn't directly involved in the trafficking. Was he a facilitator? Sure, but most drug trafficking is facilitated through systems that are considered legal: post office, google searches, emails, medicine labs, etc. Yet, why is the moderator of a platform the one who has to pay the biggest price?
So considering that, yes, his punishment far exceeds his involvement in the illegal activity. The punishment should've been shared by the dozen, if not hundreds, of other parties/groups/dynamics involved. History has proved that killing the platform doesn't fix the problem.
In other words, isn't a knowingly facilitator directly involved in the illegal activity he's facilitating?
This discussion is clouded because it's was an online platform and it was pretending to be a beacon of user privacy and civil liberties (which it was not).
Imagine a situation where you're renting rooms in your house for criminals to conduct crimes (and that's your main selling point, nobody is pretending you're renting those rooms because you want simply to help people), would we be discussing whether you deserve a harsh sentence or not? I don't think so.
The difference between the Silk Road website and Google/Postal Office is that they take reasonable measures against illegal activity on their platform when they are informed of that.
I think part of this is a perception issue. Since he did everything basically through his computer, to many people it doesn't feel much different than playing an elaborate online game. So many people can envision themselves getting into a similar situation.
This case has often been compared to Breaking Bad, where main protagonist starts off with someone that many people can identify with, and it is only through some twisted sequences of fate that leads him to getting deeper and deeper into the criminal world. And it is only really in the last season or two where it finally sinks in that he really is the bad guy.
I think fixing the sentencing in the USA requires first to overcome the fixation on good and evil and sin which in turn requires overcoming the abrahamistic religions.
If you are determinined someone is evil, you are willing to sentence them irrationally harshly based on that. If, however, your guiding principle is, that the justice system is a tool of society to keep peace and minimize injustice (among other things) then you will come to more nuanced judgments.
There is no good and evil. These are made-up categories and super subjective. We can unmake them, i.e. make them less powerful on the political level.
Well then, lets just commit genocide then, if there is no good and evil. Murder, rape, pillage, extort, blackmail, kidnap, torture, defraud. Go to town.
Nah bruh. He's where he deserves to be. Just like the Sackler family, he aided and abetted the destruction of many families and actual death of many drug users.
Saying that he deserves a harsh penalty is one thing - but double life sentence and 40 years means he'll effectively never be able to have a life.
It's almost like a death penalty (some would think even worse). Ross did facilitate bad things unintentionally and/or turned a blind eye, but he was also young and reckless.
It's time to pardon this young man so he can actually contribute positively to society and make up in other ways.
The idea that he didn't know what he was harbouring is absurd, Silk Road became well known precisely because of the things that were openly and blatantly sold on there.
Dude ran a drug trafficking platform and allegedly took out six (6) assassination contracts, therefore the dude is a dangerous criminal. Trying to portray him as some "innocent civilian" is patently dishonest. He should rot in prison for life for what he's done.
27 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 89.7 ms ] threadThat's a bit disingenuous.
does not fix a serious vulnerability when reported
does not notice fbi had root access to the servers & monitoring every direct messages and transactions
pays hackers not to hack him
joins stack overflow by rossulbricht@gmail.com to ask tor-php related questions
did not hide true ip of server
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht
That makes it sound like the prosecutor said that the contracts didn't occur. The way it's worded in the source Guardian article is "The prosecutor says he does not believe any of the killings have occurred."
In other words the prosecutor is contending that Ulbricht took out 6 unsuccessful contracts.
>None of the procuring murder allegations were part of Ulbricht's indictment in New York, although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.
[...]
>On the last day of trial, Serrin Turner, the NY lead prosecutor, addressed the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire allegations occurred. One charge of procuring murder was originally filed in October 2013 in a separate pending indictment in Maryland (which was later dismissed in its entirety in July 2018); the other five allegations were never filed.
I don't really know enough about the American justice system to understand exactly what went on there but apparently the judgement was not solely based on the nonviolent charges?
Focusing on the crimes being nonviolent seems like a poor tactic. Look at the outrage in about no one going to jail for financial malfeasance, for example.
But I have 3 particular issues with the sentence here:
1. The government has moved him twice across the country from New York to Colorado then Arizona. The Wikipedia article mentions his mother moved to Colorado to be closer to him. That seems cruel.
2. Why a high security prison that's going to put him in with actual murderers and violent offenders?
3. Life plus 40 years does seem like overkill. I mean look at the sentences for the Elizabeth Smart kidnappers by comparison.
At the end of the day though I have limited sympathy. Like what did he expect to happen?
I'm going to hazard a guess that that's fairly standard for drug kingpins which is what Ulbricht was convicted of (amongst other things).
> look at the sentences for the Elizabeth Smart kidnappers by comparison
I thought Mitchell got life without parole too, no? Ulbricht's are all concurrent so it amounts to the same sentence.
And yes, he was not convicted of the solicitation for murder, but in the US justice system considering this secondary behavior is perfectly legal. I don’t even think it’s all that uncommon or unethical. It’s just the more converse of giving someone a lighter sentence for an otherwise unblemished life.
Honest question: How much profit did pharma execs make fully knowing their drugs were abused and sold illegally en masse? I'm interested in how people think they aren't culpable? Oxycodone is a household name in drug abuse, it kills thousands every year. All those people seem to live very good lives off it's sales.
Attempts to make less addictive pain killers is an uphill battle for profitablity in the existing environment.
Not defending Ross Ulbright here either, these people should be in jail too.
Out of interest, do you know if that's a fact in the Ulbricht case i.e. the judge said she was taking it into account?
I'm not sure it matters hugely in the sense that the mandatory minimum for Continuing Criminal Enterprise is life and he was well within the bounds of that. Just curious.
So considering that, yes, his punishment far exceeds his involvement in the illegal activity. The punishment should've been shared by the dozen, if not hundreds, of other parties/groups/dynamics involved. History has proved that killing the platform doesn't fix the problem.
This discussion is clouded because it's was an online platform and it was pretending to be a beacon of user privacy and civil liberties (which it was not).
Imagine a situation where you're renting rooms in your house for criminals to conduct crimes (and that's your main selling point, nobody is pretending you're renting those rooms because you want simply to help people), would we be discussing whether you deserve a harsh sentence or not? I don't think so.
The difference between the Silk Road website and Google/Postal Office is that they take reasonable measures against illegal activity on their platform when they are informed of that.
This case has often been compared to Breaking Bad, where main protagonist starts off with someone that many people can identify with, and it is only through some twisted sequences of fate that leads him to getting deeper and deeper into the criminal world. And it is only really in the last season or two where it finally sinks in that he really is the bad guy.
If you are determinined someone is evil, you are willing to sentence them irrationally harshly based on that. If, however, your guiding principle is, that the justice system is a tool of society to keep peace and minimize injustice (among other things) then you will come to more nuanced judgments.
There is no good and evil. These are made-up categories and super subjective. We can unmake them, i.e. make them less powerful on the political level.
Good and evil are not made up categories.
But alas, Big Pharma can slang dope on every block worldwide with nary a peep.
It's almost like a death penalty (some would think even worse). Ross did facilitate bad things unintentionally and/or turned a blind eye, but he was also young and reckless.
It's time to pardon this young man so he can actually contribute positively to society and make up in other ways.