5 ms·

Stop trying to rewrite history. He was convicted of running the market, but the reason the judge threw the book at him is because he tried to have five people k

Stop trying to rewrite history. He was convicted of running the market, but the reason the judge threw the book at him is because he tried to have five people killed. >Because it is contested, the Court must make appropriate factual findings if it is to include it. The standard by which I do that is by a preponderance of the evidence. Ulbricht's directed violence here is and relates to the murders for hire which he is alleged to have commissioned and paid for. The Court must determine whether these allegations have been demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence and I find that there is ample and unambiguous evidence that Ulbricht commissioned five murders as part of his efforts to protect his criminal enterprise and that he paid for these murders. There is no evidence that he was role-playing. https://freeross.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Sentencing_2015-May-29.pdf https://freeross.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Sentencing_2... Maybe you think he didn't try to commission murders. Maybe you think judges shouldn't have so much latitude in deciding sentences. But the simple fact remains: Ulbricht is serving two life sentences mostly because the judge found that he tried to kill five people.

kodablah 8y ago
> Maybe you think judges shouldn't have so much latitude in deciding sentences. Sure scares me. Why wasn't he tried for the other crimes if his punishment is going to be based on them? This isn't a little difference to take into account when sentencing, these are important crimes on their own deserving a right to trial.
- plussed_reader 8y ago
  Because you take them down how you can; in a similar light how Capone was taken down on taxes and not murder, corruption, smuggling, or conspiracy. Or are all purveyors of the 'free market' automatically heroes in your eyes?
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > Or are all purveyors of the 'free market' automatically heroes in your eyes? No, I don't even like the guy. Why must I consider someone a hero to feel they deserve a trial for their punished actions?
    - plussed_reader 8y ago
      A trial did occur for Ross Ulbricht; I don't understand your point.
      - derefr 8y ago
        If someone is accused of X, but you "get them" for Y, and the sentencing is based on the fact that they "did" X... you never had a trial that proved that they did X, so anything you think you know about their guilt of X shouldn't be relevant to their sentence for Y. Because you don't really know. And, even if you know mathematically without a doubt that "they did it" in point-of-fact, and you have all the evidence to back you up such that you're really sure that if you did have a trial, it'd be an open-and-shut case... you still can't assume. Because it's not about whether you see guilt or innocence when you look at the evidence; it's about whether the jury sees guilt or innocence when they look at the evidence. Jury nullification means a jury can just decide, arbitrarily, that somebody's not guilty of something. And then double-jeopardy means that you can't ask that question again. It's been resolved, permanently: the accused has been declared innocent, in the eyes of the law—however strong your proof was! And any further judgements by the courts have to take, as input, that innocent verdict that came out of the trial; not the proof-of-guilt that went in but didn't survive. What that implies, to me, is that in the Al Capone example, he should never have been treated as anything other than a regular tax evader, and should only have received a regular tax-evader's sentence. I'm reminded heavily of the recent p-hacking controversy in science. Imagine a world where we "pre-register" a trial when an investigation is begun, and are then forced to go through with it (and pretend the government has the infinite money required to enable this.) In this world, that trial would likely declare the suspect innocent a lot of the time... and all the evidence gathered to do so would be "used up" by that trial. You couldn't turn around and use the same evidence to prove that "because he's guilty of X, it's more likely that..." anything else. Because, in the eyes of the law, he isn't guilty of X, and anything that proves that, doesn't. The evidence itself was nullified when the verdict was. In the real world, just to save time and money, we don't bother to prosecute trials we know we'll lose. But shouldn't the effects still be the same as if we did? An optimization shouldn't change the semantics of the system.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
The problem is that what he did /was proven amounted to a life sentence and the judge could have given him that. Honestly I don't think judges should sentence based on what was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is was so clear, why wasn't he charged for it?
LMYahooTFY 8y ago
Who's trying re-write history here? https://web.archive.org/web/20160305020239/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/silk-road-founder-held-without-bail https://web.archive.org/web/20160305020239/http://www.thegua... You're omitting very important details.
AnaniasAnanas 8y ago
Didn't he try to have five people killed only after they went after him?

kodablah 8y ago

> Maybe you think judges shouldn't have so much latitude in deciding sentences. Sure scares me. Why wasn't he tried for the other crimes if his punishment is going to be based on them? This isn't a little difference to take into account when sentencing, these are important crimes on their own deserving a right to trial.

plussed_reader 8y ago
Because you take them down how you can; in a similar light how Capone was taken down on taxes and not murder, corruption, smuggling, or conspiracy. Or are all purveyors of the 'free market' automatically heroes in your eyes?
- kodablah 8y ago
  > Or are all purveyors of the 'free market' automatically heroes in your eyes? No, I don't even like the guy. Why must I consider someone a hero to feel they deserve a trial for their punished actions?
  - plussed_reader 8y ago
    A trial did occur for Ross Ulbricht; I don't understand your point.
    - derefr 8y ago
      If someone is accused of X, but you "get them" for Y, and the sentencing is based on the fact that they "did" X... you never had a trial that proved that they did X, so anything you think you know about their guilt of X shouldn't be relevant to their sentence for Y. Because you don't really know. And, even if you know mathematically without a doubt that "they did it" in point-of-fact, and you have all the evidence to back you up such that you're really sure that if you did have a trial, it'd be an open-and-shut case... you still can't assume. Because it's not about whether you see guilt or innocence when you look at the evidence; it's about whether the jury sees guilt or innocence when they look at the evidence. Jury nullification means a jury can just decide, arbitrarily, that somebody's not guilty of something. And then double-jeopardy means that you can't ask that question again. It's been resolved, permanently: the accused has been declared innocent, in the eyes of the law—however strong your proof was! And any further judgements by the courts have to take, as input, that innocent verdict that came out of the trial; not the proof-of-guilt that went in but didn't survive. What that implies, to me, is that in the Al Capone example, he should never have been treated as anything other than a regular tax evader, and should only have received a regular tax-evader's sentence. I'm reminded heavily of the recent p-hacking controversy in science. Imagine a world where we "pre-register" a trial when an investigation is begun, and are then forced to go through with it (and pretend the government has the infinite money required to enable this.) In this world, that trial would likely declare the suspect innocent a lot of the time... and all the evidence gathered to do so would be "used up" by that trial. You couldn't turn around and use the same evidence to prove that "because he's guilty of X, it's more likely that..." anything else. Because, in the eyes of the law, he isn't guilty of X, and anything that proves that, doesn't. The evidence itself was nullified when the verdict was. In the real world, just to save time and money, we don't bother to prosecute trials we know we'll lose. But shouldn't the effects still be the same as if we did? An optimization shouldn't change the semantics of the system.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

The problem is that what he did /was proven amounted to a life sentence and the judge could have given him that. Honestly I don't think judges should sentence based on what was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is was so clear, why wasn't he charged for it?

LMYahooTFY 8y ago

Who's trying re-write history here? https://web.archive.org/web/20160305020239/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/silk-road-founder-held-without-bail https://web.archive.org/web/20160305020239/http://www.thegua... You're omitting very important details.

AnaniasAnanas 8y ago

Didn't he try to have five people killed only after they went after him?