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Ross Ulbricht is not done with the courts because, contrary to popular belief and media reporting, the Supreme Court is not the last stop on the appeals process

Ross Ulbricht is not done with the courts because, contrary to popular belief and media reporting, the Supreme Court is not the last stop on the appeals process line. Next on tap for Mr. Ulbricht is the time-honored 2255 motion. Mr. Ulbricht now has until next June to file a civil lawsuit against the US government accusing it of violating his civil rights and seeking the verdict to be set aside or his sentence to be redetermined. Why bring it up? 2255's are far more likely to succeed than a Supreme Court petition (the high court gets more petitions every year and yet considers fewer of them every year). Why now? The law says you can't bring up a 2255 until your last conventional appeal is exhausted. Further, the 2255 gets to be considered by the very same trial judge who convicted and sentenced him. While that's a foregone conclusion, the second circuit will no doubt thereafter be asked to consider that petition, and might decide to either set Ulbricht free or reduce his time to maybe 10 years or time served, given how ridiculously beyond the pale the original sentence was. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Ross considered the Supreme Court taking his case as being a snowball's chance in hell for the year-plus they've been sitting on the case, and has just been looking forward to finally filing his 2255. Keep watching. It might be about to get good.

Tomte 8y ago
Wouldn‘t the Second Circuit have already found a way, a procedural technicality or whatever, if they felt the sentence was „beyond the pale“? They did confirm the judgement, right?
- mchannon 8y ago
  You probably mean "affirm", which is lawyerese for confirm. No, circuit courts limit themselves to what your appellate counsel brings, and strictly limits what you can bring up by limiting the amount of time at argument to 30 minutes or less. That translates to, at most, 2 issues, and I'm sure Mr. Ulbricht can point to over 200 at this point (2255's have a page limit, and you can move for extra pages, but you are pretty much stuck filing a 2255 only once). Further, the original appellate process only considers matters of law (was XYZ a crime) and not matters of fact (witness alleging XYZ was also convicted for stealing Ross' bitcoins), so the juiciest stuff was barred until now. Further, the panel of circuit judges that originally affirmed things can differ markedly with the judges who'll grant the certificate of appealability and/or consider the 2255 petition.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tango24 8y ago
    What two issues (of the 200 you mentioned) do you expect his council to argue? Why do you anticipate he will win?
    - mchannon 8y ago
      Let me clear up the confusion. The original appeal is highly limited to at most two issues, and strictly matters of law. The 2255 is wide open. You're limited by the number of pages (and the realization that if the first, say, 10 claims you bring up fail, maybe it wasn't likely to make a difference if you file any more). Mention of counsel is funny, because 2/3 of 2255 issues tend to revolve around "ineffective assistance of counsel" (IAC). As such, you generally have to get a different lawyer or do it yourself, since no lawyer will accuse himself of doing a bad job with a straight face. IAC may include anything from the attorney forgetting to bring up something important, to declaring the defendant guilty in open court, to falling asleep at trial. It generally has to be something really really unprofessional, and the defendant had to have suffered "prejudice". In other words, if you were, based on the mountain of evidence, going to be found guilty, whether or not (for example) your attorney slept with your wife, you suffered no prejudice and the verdict and sentence stand. I'm sure in that pile of 2255 complaints will be the matter that the investigating officers and leading state witnesses (Carl Mark Force IV, FBI, and Shaun Bridges, Secret Service) committed perjury and theft and this prejudiced Ulbricht's right to a fair trial. There will probably also be matter about unlawful search and seizure by the feds using hacking tools, etc. I have a feeling the most fascinating stuff will be unknown to the public thus far.

Tomte 8y ago

Wouldn‘t the Second Circuit have already found a way, a procedural technicality or whatever, if they felt the sentence was „beyond the pale“? They did confirm the judgement, right?

mchannon 8y ago
You probably mean "affirm", which is lawyerese for confirm. No, circuit courts limit themselves to what your appellate counsel brings, and strictly limits what you can bring up by limiting the amount of time at argument to 30 minutes or less. That translates to, at most, 2 issues, and I'm sure Mr. Ulbricht can point to over 200 at this point (2255's have a page limit, and you can move for extra pages, but you are pretty much stuck filing a 2255 only once). Further, the original appellate process only considers matters of law (was XYZ a crime) and not matters of fact (witness alleging XYZ was also convicted for stealing Ross' bitcoins), so the juiciest stuff was barred until now. Further, the panel of circuit judges that originally affirmed things can differ markedly with the judges who'll grant the certificate of appealability and/or consider the 2255 petition.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tango24 8y ago
  What two issues (of the 200 you mentioned) do you expect his council to argue? Why do you anticipate he will win?
  - mchannon 8y ago
    Let me clear up the confusion. The original appeal is highly limited to at most two issues, and strictly matters of law. The 2255 is wide open. You're limited by the number of pages (and the realization that if the first, say, 10 claims you bring up fail, maybe it wasn't likely to make a difference if you file any more). Mention of counsel is funny, because 2/3 of 2255 issues tend to revolve around "ineffective assistance of counsel" (IAC). As such, you generally have to get a different lawyer or do it yourself, since no lawyer will accuse himself of doing a bad job with a straight face. IAC may include anything from the attorney forgetting to bring up something important, to declaring the defendant guilty in open court, to falling asleep at trial. It generally has to be something really really unprofessional, and the defendant had to have suffered "prejudice". In other words, if you were, based on the mountain of evidence, going to be found guilty, whether or not (for example) your attorney slept with your wife, you suffered no prejudice and the verdict and sentence stand. I'm sure in that pile of 2255 complaints will be the matter that the investigating officers and leading state witnesses (Carl Mark Force IV, FBI, and Shaun Bridges, Secret Service) committed perjury and theft and this prejudiced Ulbricht's right to a fair trial. There will probably also be matter about unlawful search and seizure by the feds using hacking tools, etc. I have a feeling the most fascinating stuff will be unknown to the public thus far.