Silk Road Founder Loses Appeal and Will Serve Life (yahoo.com)

OutOnARock quotes a report from Yahoo: Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet marketplace known as Silk Road, has lost his appeal of a 2015 conviction that has him serving a life sentence on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, according to a federal appeals court decision released Wednesday morning. Ulbricht argued that the district court that convicted him violated the Fourth Amendment -- which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures -- by wrongly denying his motion to suppress evidence, and that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial. "On the day of Ulbricht's arrest, the government obtained a warrant to seize Ulbricht's laptop and search it for a wide variety of information related to Silk Road and information that would identify Ulbricht as Dread Pirate Roberts," states the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Downtown Manhattan. "Ulbricht moved to suppress the large quantity of evidence obtained from his laptop, challenging the constitutionality of that search warrant."

Comments

Sure, sure...

[Frosty Piss]

Sure, life is a bit much for these crimes. But what of this?

March 2013 â" Dread Pirate Roberts solicits the first of six murders for hire, after a Silk Road user tries to extort money by threatening to reveal usersâ(TM) identities, according to prosecutors. (The killings were not carried out.)

Re:Sure, sure...

[JBMcB]

That wasn't what he was convicted of, though. There is one pending trial for solicitation for murder or something like that.

Re:Sure, sure...

[retchdog]

on the bright side, he's already serving life, so whatever.

Deterrence

[interkin3tic]

Before Ulbricht was sentenced, prosecutors sent the judge a 16-page letter asking that in order to deter others he be given a lengthy sentence, one substantially above the mandatory minimum of 20 years.

Welp, I was about to setup a knockoff silk road, but given the harsh treatment of this guy, I'd better not. Good job prosecutors!

Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Life... for running a website.

Meanwhile rapists and murders are getting out at 2-3 years for good behavior.

Re:Life?

[DaHat]

What penalty would you suggest for someone who runs a website which facilitates illegal acts like rape & murder?

Re:Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like craigslist or uber?

Re:Life?

[DaHat]

Except Craigslist wasn't built (that we know of) with the primary intent of facilitating illegal activities, nor do they take deliberate steps to hide the identities of those doing such things, nor make available certain services in areas where it is illegal... and where the government has the ability to arrest & prosecute them.

Doing so tends to incur the wrath of the powers that be, just ask Carl Ferrer.

Regarding Uber... do you mean in the sense that they are an unlicensed taxi in some jurisdictions? Or some may use their service during the commission of a crime (ie take an Uber to go rape someone)?

In either case, not much of a federal matter, and local municipalities tend to go after them for the prior (which rarely have criminal penalties associated), rather than the latter where they would be little different from a common carrier.

What's next? A poor car analogy?

Re:Life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silk road ONLY facilitated drugs.

They banned weapons, even.

No murder or rape was available or possible through it.

Please keep using straw men, though.

He embarrassed the government

[Urinal Pube]

The poor guy never had a hope of getting a fair trial.

Re:He embarrassed the government

[Cytotoxic]

Yes, the government admitted that they had two corrupt officers on the investigation. They were being investigated at the time and the government actively covered it up. They admit this freely - in fact they have made the charges in court. The appeals court judge cites their reasoning in the denial, saying that it was proper to keep the proceedings of the grand jury secret, despite the defendant's right to a fair trial.

The "alleged" part would be Ulbricht's assertion that they were blackmailing him an threatening to frame him.

Some of the behavior of the legal system in this case is scary. It seems to me that they are really worried about this internet thing being used to sell drugs, so they are going to collect a few scalps as a deterrent, come hell or high water.

Here's a write-up of the appeal from the point of view of "holy crap, this is bad for freedom". The scariest point the writer makes is that the appeals judge hints that the justification for the overly harsh sentence of "life without parole" is that the defense team made the argument that the war on drugs was a bad thing with negative consequences.

Here's a bit from the decision:

In this case, a reminder of the consequences of facilitating such transactions was perhaps more necessary, particularly because Ulbricht claimed that his site actually made the drug trade safer, and he appeared to contest the legitimacy of the laws he violated.

The government argued that he deserved a harsher sentence because they alleged that they could trace 6 deaths to drug overdoses from Silk Road purchases. His lawyers countered that by providing a community rated marketplace he made the drug trade safer for users, mitigating this harm and providing a net benefit. The judge is saying that this claim makes it important that the court administer a harsher sentence.

Re: He embarrassed the government

[loufoque]

So I guess the lesson here is that you shouldn't question the legitimacy of a law, however stupid it might be?

Much better for us all

[WolfgangVL]

And safer too right?! It's in the public's interest to buy our $CONTRABAND from strangers, in person, down dark alleys. All that illicit safety found behind a keyboard was rotting our culture!

Sure, he tried to have a few fellow criminals bumped off when they turned on him, but consider the lives silk-road saved from a lifetime of sub-par employment after being popped on stupid drug charges, the medical bills avoided when the large cash transactions went bad, how about the power stolen from the much more violent physical black market, and the funeral costs avoided by dropping the x/1 equation waiting at the end of the followed money?

How about the dirty cops involved? where's that life sentence? That's an example better served, I think.

Dread Pirate Roberts has just provided a perfect blueprint to tax the black market, destroy huge and powerful criminal orgs, provide safety and security to something we should have all decided we cannot stop a long time ago.

He should be working in government.

Re:Much better for us all

[c]

Dread Pirate Roberts has just provided a perfect blueprint to tax the black market, destroy huge and powerful criminal orgs, provide safety and security to something we should have all decided we cannot stop a long time ago.

He should be working in government.

He sounds overqualified.

I have seen people shoot someone

[Anonymous Coward]

And get 5 fucking years this guy gets life for this little bit of bull shit.
We become more like China and Russia every day.

Re:Life sentence

[Gravis Zero]

He was given a life sentence for convictions on drug trafficking and money laundering.

I understand your objections but the sentence really reflects that he hired a hitman to kill six people. They could give him a normal sentence and then try him for procuring murder but it's a waste of time and money.

Re:Encryption?

[Clomer]

Why was his laptop not encrypted and if it was in what way did it prove to be insufficient? What is the best way to encrypt a laptop and keep it safe from prying eyes?

He did encrypt his laptop. The agents that arrested him watched him from a distance until he logged in. Then they moved in, making sure they didn't give him a chance to lock it.

Re:Life sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

"They could give him a normal sentence and then try him for procuring murder but it's a waste of time and money."

Really? Seriously?

So, you're entirely okay with a legal system recognizing the concept of precedent setting a precedent that money laundering or drug handling will lead to life sentences because actually prosecuting for the actual conspiracy to commit murder charge is too hard?

Re:Life sentence

[MalleusEBHC]

Fifth Amendment: "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

If you want to punish him for hiring a hitman, you need to convict him first. This is the exact bullshit the fifth amendment is meant to protect against.

Re: Life sentence

[backslashdot]

If they have proof he tried to hire hitmen, why don't they convict him on that?? Obviously they have nothing solid. He is given a punishment based on something he may not even have done! His only hope now is that a future sane president issues some kind of a pardon or chance for parole. There are a lot worse people than him being given very light sentences.

Scale

[JBMcB]

True but what he was convicted of is sufficient. The other stuff just speaks of his character. He's not some libertarian hero, rather he's an asshole scumbag ready to murder people disrupting his business.

I don't think the question is whether or not he's some sort hero. The question is if indirectly helping to distribute drugs, "computer hacking" and money laundering are worth a life sentence. According to Wikipedia, they brought up evidence of the murder conspiracy at the sentencing phase, which I completely don't understand - he hasn't been convicted of that yet.

If he's found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder or whatever, then yep - he should probably go away forever. As it is, he's going away for a longer stretch then some people get for actually murdering someone.