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Separate courts. He was indicted and tried for all the non-murder stuff in a New York federal court. He was indicted separately in a Maryland federal court on a

by tzs 2y ago

Separate courts. He was indicted and tried for all the non-murder stuff in a New York federal court. He was indicted separately in a Maryland federal court on a murder-for-hire charge. The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. He appealed, and the Second Circuit upheld the sentence. The prosecutors in Maryland then dropped the murder-for-hire charge because there was no point. They said this would allow them to direct their resources to other other cases where justice had not yet been served.

gigatexal 2y ago
[flagged]
- honestSysAdmin 2y ago
  The Silk Road run by Ross Ulbricht did not have assassins on it, nor did it have any human trafficking on it. I support your right to disagree with the pardon. But please don't recklessly post disinformation like that.
  - Bud 2y ago
    [dead]
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
  That's not true. It wasn't a free for all platform.
  - gigatexal 2y ago
    Hmm did some research. Apparently it wasn’t just drugs and random stuff. I had always thought it was the 4chan of marketplaces. https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imag-30818160 https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-underground-website-where... Though an article by CBS (transcript is an interview) has this: “THE HUNT FOR DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS In 2011 there was a new bad guy in cyberspace behind the website Silk Road. He oversaw more than $200 million in illegal transactions on the dark web, involving the sale of drugs, weapons and illicit services such as computer hacking. Even murders for hire were discussed on the site.” “Milan Patel: We saw murder-for-hire postings, hacking-for-hire postings, which was, "hey, pay me two bitcoin, and I'll hack into your ex-wife or ex-husband's email account." … and I suspect people were using it because it made a lot of sense. It was totally anonymous. And you could never trace it back to the person who asked for it.” https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ross-ulbricht-dread-pirate-roberts-silk-road-fbi/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ross-ulbricht-dread-pirate-... It stands to reason that given criminals buying and selling drugs online that the adjacent work of hacking or even murder for hire would be sought or facilitated given the fact that folks on the platform thought they were anonymous as they were transacting in bitcoin. So someone should call the FBIs bluff and given this pardon either Ross himself or one of you — his fans — could go spin up a server and restart silk road. Trump’s basically saying it’s legal. As he’s got the power to enforce or not enforce the laws this pardon basically is saying start selling drugs online. Let your libertarian freak flag fly.
    - gigatexal 2y ago
      “… was just …”
shadowgovt 2y ago
Fascinating. It is news to me that a federal court can consider the evidence for crimes not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal sentencing. Learn something new every day. Since he was sentenced federally, he'd be under the federal sentencing guidelines, but I imagine those are pretty harsh around the money laundering and drug trafficking (since they're tuned to provide a hammer to wield against mostly narco-enterprises). I suppose the additional preponderance of evidence gave the judge justification to push the sentence to the maximum allowed in the category?
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  It’s extremely common in for example diversion cases and others, where the defendant has to stipulate that they are agreeable to things being presented as in charging documents and evaluated based on preponderance by a court, not by a jury and not subject to principles of reasonable doubt.
DannyBee 2y ago
Ironically, he was only pardoned for drug related crimes, so he could still be charged with murder related ones if they were not dropped with prejudice (i didn't look) This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes related to drugs. Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which people seem to think it means sometimes. It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that erase convictions, restore rights, etc. Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but leaves your conviction intact.
- ty6853 2y ago
  The judge wrote at sentencing the murder for hire 'counted' as an element of the criminal enterprise. So if he was pardoned for his crimes that includes the murder for hire per the judgement of his case.
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    Even if correct, he would still be chargeable at the state level in any related state. The only thing it would protect him against would be the federal murder for hire statute (18 USC 1958). I doubt the pardon will be considered to cover that, but we'll have to wait to see the text.
    - DannyBee 2y ago
      The text is now up - https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386096/dl https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386096/dl There is nothing here that would prevent him from being charged with murder for hire, or even other drug crimes. He was only pardoned as to his existing convictions.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Murder is usually state-level jurisdiction, and the President can only pardon federal jurisdiction.
busymom0 2y ago
> The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. How is that not a massive violation of due process? Imagine you are at trial for something and get convicted. Then during the sentencing, some other unrelated case's evidence gets used by the Judge which was never introduced during trial and defendant never had any opportunity to defend or cross-examine. Judge uses that to sentence you to 2+ life sentences. After that, the other unrelated case gets dismissed WITH prejudice. Huh??? So the evidence which got used to sentence you was never ever cross-examined or tested in court. "preponderance of the evidence" is not what's used in criminal trials but just because it was introduced in sentencing, it's somehow okay?

by tzs 2y ago

gigatexal 2y ago

[flagged]

honestSysAdmin 2y ago
The Silk Road run by Ross Ulbricht did not have assassins on it, nor did it have any human trafficking on it. I support your right to disagree with the pardon. But please don't recklessly post disinformation like that.
- Bud 2y ago
  [dead]
zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
That's not true. It wasn't a free for all platform.
- gigatexal 2y ago
  Hmm did some research. Apparently it wasn’t just drugs and random stuff. I had always thought it was the 4chan of marketplaces. https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imag-30818160 https://www.gawkerarchives.com/the-underground-website-where... Though an article by CBS (transcript is an interview) has this: “THE HUNT FOR DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS In 2011 there was a new bad guy in cyberspace behind the website Silk Road. He oversaw more than $200 million in illegal transactions on the dark web, involving the sale of drugs, weapons and illicit services such as computer hacking. Even murders for hire were discussed on the site.” “Milan Patel: We saw murder-for-hire postings, hacking-for-hire postings, which was, "hey, pay me two bitcoin, and I'll hack into your ex-wife or ex-husband's email account." … and I suspect people were using it because it made a lot of sense. It was totally anonymous. And you could never trace it back to the person who asked for it.” https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ross-ulbricht-dread-pirate-roberts-silk-road-fbi/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ross-ulbricht-dread-pirate-... It stands to reason that given criminals buying and selling drugs online that the adjacent work of hacking or even murder for hire would be sought or facilitated given the fact that folks on the platform thought they were anonymous as they were transacting in bitcoin. So someone should call the FBIs bluff and given this pardon either Ross himself or one of you — his fans — could go spin up a server and restart silk road. Trump’s basically saying it’s legal. As he’s got the power to enforce or not enforce the laws this pardon basically is saying start selling drugs online. Let your libertarian freak flag fly.
  - gigatexal 2y ago
    “… was just …”

shadowgovt 2y ago

Fascinating. It is news to me that a federal court can consider the evidence for crimes not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal sentencing. Learn something new every day. Since he was sentenced federally, he'd be under the federal sentencing guidelines, but I imagine those are pretty harsh around the money laundering and drug trafficking (since they're tuned to provide a hammer to wield against mostly narco-enterprises). I suppose the additional preponderance of evidence gave the judge justification to push the sentence to the maximum allowed in the category?

FireBeyond 2y ago
It’s extremely common in for example diversion cases and others, where the defendant has to stipulate that they are agreeable to things being presented as in charging documents and evaluated based on preponderance by a court, not by a jury and not subject to principles of reasonable doubt.

DannyBee 2y ago

Ironically, he was only pardoned for drug related crimes, so he could still be charged with murder related ones if they were not dropped with prejudice (i didn't look) This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes related to drugs. Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which people seem to think it means sometimes. It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that erase convictions, restore rights, etc. Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but leaves your conviction intact.

ty6853 2y ago
The judge wrote at sentencing the murder for hire 'counted' as an element of the criminal enterprise. So if he was pardoned for his crimes that includes the murder for hire per the judgement of his case.
- DannyBee 2y ago
  Even if correct, he would still be chargeable at the state level in any related state. The only thing it would protect him against would be the federal murder for hire statute (18 USC 1958). I doubt the pardon will be considered to cover that, but we'll have to wait to see the text.
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    The text is now up - https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386096/dl https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386096/dl There is nothing here that would prevent him from being charged with murder for hire, or even other drug crimes. He was only pardoned as to his existing convictions.
mmooss 2y ago
Murder is usually state-level jurisdiction, and the President can only pardon federal jurisdiction.

busymom0 2y ago

> The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. How is that not a massive violation of due process? Imagine you are at trial for something and get convicted. Then during the sentencing, some other unrelated case's evidence gets used by the Judge which was never introduced during trial and defendant never had any opportunity to defend or cross-examine. Judge uses that to sentence you to 2+ life sentences. After that, the other unrelated case gets dismissed WITH prejudice. Huh??? So the evidence which got used to sentence you was never ever cross-examined or tested in court. "preponderance of the evidence" is not what's used in criminal trials but just because it was introduced in sentencing, it's somehow okay?