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Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison
An anonymous reader sends an update on the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the man behind the Silk Road online black market. Sentencing is now complete, and Ulbricht has been given life in prison. He had been facing a 20-year minimum because of the charge of being a "drug kingpin," and prosecutors were asking for a sentence substantially higher than the minimum. Prior to the sentence being handed down today, Ulbricht spoke before the court for 20 minutes, asking for leniency and for the judge to leave him a "light at the end of the tunnel." The judge was unswayed, giving Ulbricht the most severe sentence possible. She said, "The stated purpose [of the silk road] was to be beyond the law. ... Silk Road's birth and presence asserted that its creator was better than the laws of this country. This is deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous." Ulbricht's family plans to appeal.
All he did was facilitate transactions among consenting adults.
Something is wrong with our country.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
... and the authorities will question you.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I think Ulbricht has a pretty good case for an appeal here. Take the part in the article where the federal prosecutor mentioned that people had died from overdoses of drugs they had purchased on Silk Road. The way the prosecutor says this, they make it sound like Ulbricht had something to do with their deaths by overdose, when in all likelihood they would have purchased drugs and overdosed from somewhere other than Silk Road had the site not existed. The same thing goes for the failed attempt at hiring a hitman - they didn't charge him in that case, and yet it was still being brought up as "character evidence".
I really fail to see what makes Ross Ulbricht any different from a regular drug dealer on the street (few of whom get life sentences) other than the massive amount of media attention that Silk Road got and that he was dealing drugs over the internet.
Selling drugs and weapons are only serious crimes if you're not the government.
Oh? You forgot for a minute that the CIA's major money maker is dealing illegal drugs? You even forgot about them selling weapons to or otherwise directly arming dangerous criminals involved in the drug trade? I mean, it's not like Sinaloa, the largest and most powerful drug cartel in the US and Mexico, was put in power directly because of the Drug Enforcement Agencies support, right?
Lack of respect for legal and political authority is evidently a far worse crime than actual murder.
Selling drugs and weapons are serious crimes and should be justly punished.
Unless it's Caspar Weinberger or Eric Holder. Then it's totally legit.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
The prosecution hinted that he was responsible for six murders, but didn't charge any, naturally ("he's a murderer, just take our word for it"). They pointed out that at least one person died from a drug overdose, implying that this was his fault. Really? Not the fault of the person who overdosed, or the person who sold the drugs but the person who created the means of sale? So the next time someone is caught selling drugs out of their car, we'll just seize the vehicle then dig up the corpse of Henry Ford and put it on trial?
It sounds a lot more like the government trying to make an example out of someone. I really hope that this doesn't hold up on appeal.
Selling drugs and weapons are serious crimes and should be justly punished. Propz to GNAA
Let's devil's advocate a bit...
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons. (infringe ~ "even meddle with the fringes of") That includes gun trafficing, because stopping gun sales makes it harder to exercise the right.
The Tenth Amendment explicitly, and the Ninth Amendment implicitly, ban the Federal Government from use of any power not explicitly specified in the Constitution as amended. I don't see anything in there that explicitly gives the Federal Government to ban any drugs or traffic in them, or in any way regulate such traffic (beyond forbidding false advertising claims, setting standards for labeling, and the like). (Do YOU find any such power in there? If so, please point it out to us.)
So it could be argued that, by the Federal Government's own basic laws, these were NOT crimes and the "Dread Pirate" was a freedom fighter.
(I won't even get into the issue of the Anarchist claims that ANY government is necessarily illegitimate, coercively imposing its will on people who did not pre-approve this and are not attempting, themselves, to coerce others. The people who promulgated the Constitution were doing their best to get governments off people's backs.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Keep licking them boots and some day they might let you wear one for a few minutes
The Tenth Amendment explicitly, and the Ninth Amendment implicitly, ban the Federal Government from use of any power not explicitly specified in the Constitution as amended. I don't see anything in there that explicitly gives the Federal Government to ban any drugs or traffic in them, or in any way regulate such traffic (beyond forbidding false advertising claims, setting standards for labeling, and the like). (Do YOU find any such power in there? If so, please point it out to us.)
The Commerce Clause? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
This is another example of how far our government has it's head up it's a**.
A man dealing in information and taking a fee is sentenced to life.
Most of his crimes are in the imagination of the prosecutors.
The Mafia still exists, but they pay bribery (and lawyers)
An organized criminal in our banking & financial industry get off with a fine.
It's just another day on Wall street (too big to fail?)
Destroy a million peoples retirement & mortgage, who may never recover and criminals profit.
Destroy the countries health and bribe the congress to allow it !
Monsanto, RJ Reynolds, & ?
Pay attention Eric Snowden, don't come back to the US.
They are planning something truly awful for you.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
I'm not at all supportive of what he did (you won't find a more anti-drugs person than me) but this seems particularly harsh.
If this sentence is to "set an example" then it must be overturned. The keystone of justice is fairness and setting an example with a harsh punishment is by definition unfair.
The Commerce Clause?
Nope. (The powers it DOES confer were already alluded to in my posting.)
"Regulating" = making regular, setting standards, etc. It does NOT include banning whole classes of trade entirely.
If they want to PROMOTE drug and gun sales, that's fine. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
IMO he is an idiot. He knew that what he was doing was illegal. He was taking big profit from it. Yet he decided to run his *internet* business from US. Which is stupid. Since it is an internet business you could run it from anywhere and given the income he had he would have settled him OK in any country. Yet he decided to reside in US where his sentence would be draconian for sure. Clearly an idiot.
I posted in this thread already but then went and read more about the case, and thought I'd share some anecdotal evidence.
As part of my job I sometimes have to sit in court rooms for specific cases, and I end up hearing a lot of other cases while I'm there. Two have stuck in my mind.
The first was the case of a lady who had been stopped by the police for using her mobile phone while driving. Her defence was that she'd been at home and a relative had called to tell her that her dad had been rushed to hospital. She jumped in the car, set off, and phoned her sister. That was when the police saw her. The prosecution didn't challenge her version of events. To me it seemed like an obvious time for a judge to use his discretion, but no, because her defence involved an admission that she did use the phone while driving, so she was found guilty and fined about £750 if I remember correctly.
Another case was a police officer accused of causing injury by dangerous driving. He'd driven through a red light while responding to an emergency call and collided with another car. I'm going to paraphrase as best I can how the judge handed down his verdict: "It is part of a police driver's job that they will sometimes have to exceed the speed limit or go through a red light when responding to an emergency call, and it is vital that due care and attention is paid to ensure that it is safe to do so. You did not exercise due care or attention when going through the red light and that lack of care caused the collision. However, you were responding to an emergency call, and therefore the court hands down an absolute discharge." Read that again if it's not immediately obvious what was wrong with the judge's logic :-)
Here's my point. When I read about the Ross Ulbricbht court, what comes across to me is that the judge is saying "blah blah yadda yadda legal stuff and now here is MY OPINION" which will vary from judge to judge. But surely justice must be consistent? You shouldn't have one judge convicting a person for making an urgent phone call, but a different judge effectively exonerating a policeman for not driving with the care required by his job. And you shouldn't have a judge handing down an entire life sentence when another judge would most likely have given a sentence of 10-20 years.
Opinions shouldn't come in to justice. If they do, it's not justice, it's one person's opinion of what justice should be.
Yes it can. [Gonzales v. Raich]
The issue was not in dispute in that case:
In my opinion, by the way, Wickard v. Filburn, the New Deal era decision that says making something for yourself (i.e. growing wheat to feed your own chickens, or growing marijuana to use yourself) affects interstate commerce (because you otherwise might have bought it instead, affecting the price) and can thus be regulated, is a travesty that is long overdue for the Supremes to revisit and reverse, as they sometimes do when a previous court broke something substantial.
But even if you agree that feeding your own wheat to your own chickens is a suitable subject for federal regulation under the commerce clause, don't you think it's a stretch to say that affecting the price of a banned substance by NOT buying it on the illegal market is a legitimate reason for the Federal Government to ban your growing and consuming your own plants? Either way you don't buy in interstate commerce, so how can the difference in your behavior affect it? (Or was it Congress' intent for you to buy illegal drugs?)
Sometimes more than half the Supreme Court justices follow some argument to a point beyond sanity.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons. (infringe ~ "even meddle with the fringes of")
Your interpretation is quaint, and incorrect, at least it didn't mean that until 2008, Columbia v. Heller
Nor in the Constitution!
The public's understanding of the 2nd Amendment started to be distorted by the NRA early in the last century. The NRA has been filling the minds of gun owners with an interpretation that was never intended by the Founders for some time, so no one can blame you for your incorrect interpretation when a propaganda machine like the NRA has been bombarding you with selective truths and out-right lies.
That includes gun trafficing, because stopping gun sales makes it harder to exercise the right.
Wow... THAT is OUT THERE. Of course, you are completely mistaken, and this bold statement of yours is wildly, dangerously inaccurate. Gun regulation is legal, and necessary.
The Admin and the Engineer
The Second Amendment clearly (to anyone who understands how English was used at the time) forbids the Federal Government from interfering, in any way, with obtaining and carrying weapons.
Since you're apparently an expert in the colloquial interpretation of 18th century American English, could you please explain what this part of the 2nd amendment means?
"A well regulated Militia"
As a serious student of 18th century American History (not focusing particularly on the genesis of the Bill of Rights) it would read comparably to other documents of the 1780's and 90's (this example being 1791) as: "A well regulated militia, by which we mean an armed militia and not a standing army, shall always be allowed."
Your translation doesn't seem to mention a militia at all...
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Since you're apparently an expert in the colloquial interpretation of 18th century American English, could you please explain what this part of the 2nd amendment means?
You're looking at the language and purpose of the amendment incorrectly. To translate its essence into more modern parlance, if would go something like: "Because it's always going to be necessary to have a trained and equipped military organization ready to defend the country, the government - in the interests of not allowing the government to have a monopoly on the tools of defense - shall not prevent citizens who are not in the military from having arms."
The people who wrote that amendment still had a very bad taste in their mouths from living under a monarchy that DID reserve the power to capriciously allow only the military to keep and bear arms. Knowing that a military/militia is necessary, they used the second amendment to be VERY clear that they considered the fundamental right to keep and bear arms to be NOT exclusive to the military. Just like the considered the freedom to speak to be not under the control of the government.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Here's my point. When I read about the Ross Ulbricbht court, what comes across to me is that the judge is saying "blah blah yadda yadda legal stuff and now here is MY OPINION" which will vary from judge to judge. But surely justice must be consistent? You shouldn't have one judge convicting a person for making an urgent phone call, but a different judge effectively exonerating a policeman for not driving with the care required by his job. And you shouldn't have a judge handing down an entire life sentence when another judge would most likely have given a sentence of 10-20 years.
I am undoing moderation to post this, because I have seen similar comments everywhere covering the story, all moderated up, and it simply isn't true.
Yes sentencing should be consistent which is why we have sentencing guidelines, and this judge followed them. He was convicted of running a continuing criminal enterprise which has a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. And it gets worse when you add up the offense levels in the guidelines for his crimes: It was demonstrated that people who took drugs purchased on Silk Road have died from that drug use, which give him a base offense level of 38. The continuing criminal enterprise offense adds 4 points, and since he played an Aggravated Role as the ring leader that adds another 4 points, bringing him to 46 points. The sentencing table for someone with no prior convictions and an offense level of 43 or more is a life sentence, period, and that is before talking about the other five charges he was convicted of! As a judge you would have to present a very strong argument as to why someone with that high of an offense level should get less than life.
The reason he got such a harsh sentence is because our drug laws are so harsh, not because the judge was harsh. Prosecutors have huge flexibility in what they charge people with, and in this case they threw the book at him.
Your interpretation is quaint, and incorrect, at least it didn't mean that until 2008, Columbia v. Heller [thedailybeast.com]
Isn't this self-contradicting? 'quaint' ~ 'old fashioned'. A decision as recent as 2008 is very much not old fashioned.
The public's understanding of the 2nd Amendment started to be distorted by the NRA [politico.com] early in the last century.
The NRA wasn't a lobbying organization until late in the last century, so this statement is incorrect. The NRA ended up becoming a lobbying organization due to the spread of gun control laws resulting in it's membership having it create a lobbying branch.
The NRA has been filling the minds of gun owners with an interpretation that was never intended by the Founders for some time,
Given what I've read in sources like the federalist papers, I think that the NRA version is closer to reality than yours.
That being said, your rights can be restricted through 'due process of law', IE conviction by a court and jury of your peers. So I'm okay with things like the NICS check, prohibition by felons. I think that the post-facto punishment of misdemeanor DV charges is a violation, because there's a very good chance that people like police officers who were convicted of such things, usually by pleading guilty, long before this rule was in effect, would have fought it in court and won at least a percentage of the time if the rule had been in place, or they knew it was coming, before they pled guilty.
I don't read AC A human right
Before the sentence was handed down, the court heard from two parents of young men who died from drugs purchased on the Silk Road.
''You don't fit a typical criminal profile,'' she began. ''It's not TV or the movies in here. You're educated. You've got two degrees, an intact family, and 98 people willing to write letters on your behalf. And yet, we have you. And you are a criminal.''
Ulbricht had been betrayed by his own words, and over the next several minutes, Forrest proceeded to read the most damning passages from his own logs and journals.
'It's still not clear to me why you kept a journal,'' she noted, an aside that apparently produced laughter in the overflow room.
''You were captain of the ship. It wasn't a world of 'freedom'---it was a place with a lot of rules. It was a world of your laws.''
''It was a carefully planned life's work,'' she said, pointing to a 2010 journal entry saying he'd already been thinking about the site for a year. ''It was your opus. You wanted it to be your legacy---and it is.''
Ulbricht's ideological messages on Silk Road boards ''reveal a kind of arrogance,'' she said. ''Silk Road's creation shows that you thought you were better than the laws.''
As for the ''harm reduction'' arguments, the judge could not have been more cutting. She read every academic study suggested by the defense, and then some, and was not impressed.
''No drug dealer from Harlem or the Bronx would have made these arguments,'' said Forrest. ''It's an argument of privilege.''
Ulbricht was focused on harm that could come the user. But most drug violence didn't come from buys on the street, but from ''upstream'' violence that grows as demand grows, she asserted. Believing that the user is the only person affected by drug violence is ''f'antasy, it's magical thinking,'' she said.
As for Fernando Caudevilla, or ''Doctor X,'' the Spanish doctor hired by Ulbricht to give advice to users, the judge read his messages, and found them ''breathtakingly irresponsible.''
Caudevilla told a diabetic that using MDMA would be OK, as long as he remembered to check his glucose levels by setting an alarm. In another message, he advised an 18-year-old first time drug user to ''be careful and I think you'll be fine,'' and to ''stick to psychedelics.''