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Silk Road Drug Dealer Pleads Guilty After Federal Sting
Ars Technica reports that
A 26-year-old Columbus, Ohio man has pleaded guilty to selling drugs through the Silk Road website. David Lawrence Handel apparently obtained methylone and other drugs from a supplier in China, which he then sold to buyers on the online black market. Among those buyers were Maryland federal agents, who were making undercover purchases. Handel shipped the drugs to them through the US Postal Service, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland. ... Handel faces up to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking and up to life for using and possessing a firearm. His sentencing is scheduled for May 15.
Handel faces up to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking and up to life for using and possessing a firearm.
No. For using and possessing a firearm in the commission of a crime. Using and possessing a firearm is not itself a crime.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Tell that to the store owner who goes through the psychological trauma of having a gun pointed in there face, many people are seriously fucked up after such incidents. The difference between the two incidents for the victims is massive.
But that additional offense is a 5-year "enhancement" of the other sentence. Nowhere does that say anything about "life". So I'm wondering where the life sentence supposedly came from.
Here is a link directly to the prosecutor's statement. They claim the penalty for possessing a firearm while trafficking drugs is "5 years to life". Either way, he has already accepted a plea bargain, so it is likely in the low end of that range.
He was dumb. He took a gun with him to pick up the package at the post office. Was he really planning to have a shoot out over a $4800 package? Don't carry a gun unless you are prepared to use it. He shouldn't have even picked it up himself. Instead he should have paid some underage kid to do the pickup.
Tell that to the store owner who goes through the psychological trauma of having a gun pointed in there face, many people are seriously fucked up after such incidents. The difference between the two incidents for the victims is massive.
That would only happen if the store owner is *threatened* with the gun. If the crook simply had the gun hidden on his person, the end result would have been the same whether he had the gun on him or not. Of course, a crook simply carrying a gun does increase the chances that he'd panic and shoot someone. On the other hand, a crook using a knife instead has a much higher risk that some idiot will get himself killed playing the hero because "it's only a knife".
Of course, a life sentence for merely carrying a gun seems like begging for said gun carrier to start using it.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Yeah, states with Republican governors have been going balls-out for privatized prisons. They're the worst idea yet in an economic system that's seen a century-long string of bad ideas. How anyone could think that it was smart to have private industry run prisons is just beyond me. And I'm not talking about some contractors brought in to provide food service, but that the entire prison would be a for-profit industry is just insane.
You are welcome on my lawn.
because the biology of addiction was invented in the 1900s, right?
oh, and look, the opium wars, drug pushers weakening and subjugating an entire civilization:
http://www.sacu.org/opium2.htm...
but nahhh... until the 1900s the world was a utopia of drug use with no downside, right?
you really should educate yourself, on basic pharmacology and history, before you comment on a topic
or your words only serve to show how ignorant you are on a topic
the simple fact is, ever since groog wanted to drown his sorrows in fermented fruit all day instead of carry his weight in his tribe, drugs have been a problem
the drug addict, since even before we had fully evolved as humans, to today, and as long as we exist, is a weakness
it creates people who cannot support themselves. this is why society has to intervene
i'm not saying our current interventions work. the usa drug policy is fucking stupid. but because our methods suck doesn't mean the problem isn't real
portugal for example has much better *tactics* in the war on drugs (healthcare for addicts, prosecute pushers)
but the war on drugs has been going on forever, and will go on, forever
it's simply a maintenance function of civilization
if you don't understand that drug use costs us all, or don't admit, you're a fucking moron on this topic
if you deny that not everyone uses them responsibly, if you deny that many become addicts, you don't understand a fucking thing you are talking about
drugs will always be a problem. because people *always* misuse them
START with that thought, then you can say something intelligent about drug use and drug policy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just read a bit about that. I'm glad to know the judge got sentenced to 28 years in federal prison, which actually means 28 years (unlike state time). He won't get out until he's 85, if he lives that long. Being a corrupt judge in federal prison, I suspect he'll be dead long before he gets out. Federal inmates tend to dislike corrupt judges, and federal inmates sometimes do bad things to people.
This attitude is part of everything that's wrong with the prison system. The idea that prisoners should be relied upon and expected to met out additional extrajudicial punishment to other prisoners. The idea that prison rape is "ok" because it's happening to other prisoners.