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Ross Ulbricht Found Guilty On All 7 Counts In Silk Road Trial
blottsie writes Ross Ulbricht was convicted on Wednesday of running Silk Road, a Dark Net black market that became over a $100 million Internet phenomenon before Ulbricht's 2013 arrest. Ulbricht was found guilty on all seven felony charges he faced, including drug trafficking, continuing a criminal enterprise, hacking, money laundering, and fraud with identification documents. He faces up to life in prison for these convictions.
Yup, and as mentioned most of us won't even bother reading the transcript to know the difference.
That's why injustice exists. Not because evil exists, but because apathy does.
Seriously. RoknrolZombie makes a ridiculous point. If justice meant every citizen had to read every court transcript then justice would be impossible.
Instead, we hire professionals to do that work for us. We call them "judges". To be extra super careful, instead of just having one judge we have several layers of judges who can overrule findings. The system is open to critique on the details but I can't imagine a fundamentally different system that would be better.
No, but it's a reasonable prerequisite for those who are expressing strong opinions about the outcome.
If he did it, he's a hero. He should be celebrated as the next Jeff Bezos for innovating a new way to do commerce online. Making the black market a safter place is a good thing, prohibition is what's wrong.
Opinions about the outcome don't matter. Due process doesn't allow for crowd sourced judgments. The legal procedure is well established and time-tested.
The guy is guilty as charged. That's not open to opinion and not reversible by public vote.
There are appeal process, other until then, let be written, so let it be done.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I've been following this trial for the last few weeks reading Ars, Wired, TechDirt and listening to Free Talk Live. The Judge basically hamstringed the defense ruling that they should only receive the prosecution's evidence against him...the weekend before the trial began. That right there is such a fundamental insult to the basic rights of any accused that should horrify and enrage anyone who believed in our justice system's impartiality. Add that to the fact that the judge allowed the the prosecution to use the accusations that Ulbricht hired assassins to be considered by the jury even though none of that has been proven or even competently investigated, that is a massive miscarriage of justice on stupendous levels that should frighten anyone living in the US. Evidence such as screenshots implicating his guilt that could have easily been forged were accepted without question....the list goes on. They also disallowed Andreas Antonopoulos, an expert witness on understanding how BitCoin and it's blockchain works to help the jury understand what they were hearing so to form a basis on how to poke holes in the Fed's story....this is almost a blatant showing of the corruption of our justice system and it's subservience to US intelligence services as the Snowden revelations. I'm not saying Ulbricht was innocent...I don't know that...but what happened in this trial was in no way anything but a kangaroo court on display in full form. Ulbricht's guilt is still up in the air, but our government was guilty of far worse crimes merely in that Manhattan courtroom the last 4 weeks.
Prohibition of (most) drugs: yes. Prohibition of crazy machine guns, child slavery (or any kind of slavery, really), murder-for-hire, etc... not so much. I'm all for a better, safer drug market, but the way to go is working to lift prohibitions on drugs that shouldn't be illegal, not this.
If he did it, he's a hero. He should be celebrated as the next Jeff Bezos for innovating a new way to do commerce online. Making the black market a safter place is a good thing, prohibition is what's wrong.
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Now you will just have to hire hit men on amazon prime. Dude, he tried to get 5 people killed. He's not a hero just because you think he stuck it to the man and sold you your drugs on line.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You allude to one of the most disgusting loopholes in the US justice system, which is that double jeopardy does not apply across the federal/state boundary. So, yes, the feds can try you, you can be found innocent, and then the state gets another bite at the apple.
This is VERY uncommon, though, because both federal and state prosecutors typically will, as agency policy, NOT exercise this right, because it's so unfair to do that and so out-of-keeping with the spirit of the constitution. But there have been instances where they have done this. And it's disgusting.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
And jury nullification is supposed to be for juries to nullify illegal laws (i.e. unconstitutional ones), not laws they might have a personal disagreement with.
And who's to stop them? This is why the legal system hates jury nullification, you can rule not just on the facts and the law but on who the accused and the victim are. Slutty drunk girl? Rape charges dismissed. White guy on trial killing a black guy? Murder charges dismissed. You can find several people in this thread who'd give him a free pass to break any law he wants because he's some sort of "hero" to them.
If the legislative and/or judicial branch of the government is broken then trying to fix it with jury nullification is like putting a band aid on a man that has jumped on a grenade, the rules will keep changing until the rule of law is restored. It's random as one man is convicted today and another is let go tomorrow for the same crime depending on who's on jury duty. Take a look at your average jury, do you really think it would be used most for the right or wrong reasons? Even smart people here are more than willing to abuse it, now imagine the dumb ones.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The legal system is fucked up. While we probably shouldn't throw people in jail based on public opinion based on one-sided news reports we need to ensure the legal system actually provides for a fair trial. That's not happening in ANY case right now.
"The federal guilty plea rate has risen from 83% in 1983 to 96% in 2009,[24] a rise attributed largely to the Sentencing Guidelines." - Federal guilty pleas and trial rates, U.S. Sentencing Commission
Where there may have been some resemblance of fairness judges hands today are tied and prosecutors use this to force pleas out of those whoa re accused. There is no such thing as a fair trial as such would require a defence teams with millions of dollars at there disposal. The government on the other hand has that kind of money to selectively (for those who don't plead guilty) target those who object and demand a trial. The prosecutors suppose to be impartial to some degree and provide evidence to the defence. The reality is they aren't and routinely forget about evidence that might help the defence.
We don't have a "justice system."
We have a "legal system." Just because the law was followed does not mean justice was done.
Anyone looking at life in prison for a non-violent drug crime is living under an unjust system.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
There was no hope for that in this case. Silk Road embarassed the state twice: once by going uncaught for years and the second time by proving the drug war rethoric is bollocks - after all, every single customer was functional enough to operate rather complex technological systems. So there was no way in Hell Ulbricht would ever walk free again.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.