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This is wonderful. I've never argued that Ross shouldn't have served time but it's always been clear his prosecution and sentencing were excessive and unjust. T

This is wonderful. I've never argued that Ross shouldn't have served time but it's always been clear his prosecution and sentencing were excessive and unjust. The prosecutors asked for a 20 year sentence, which seemed disproportionate given the sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender and the non-violent charges he was convicted of. But the judge sentenced Ross to TWO life sentences plus 40 years - without the possibility of parole. There's no doubt Ross made a series of unwise and reckless decisions but serving over ten years of hard time in a FedMax prison is more than enough given the charges and his history. It's just unfortunate that Trump, and now, excessive pardons are politically polarized, which could cloud the fact that justice was done today. I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or even having a principled position regarding Ross' case. Clearly, others with influence on Trump convinced him to sign it. It doesn't matter how the pardon happened. Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place.

arp242 2y ago
> Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place. Biden did commute the sentence of several other non-violent cases just last week or thereabouts, and Trump has been talking about Ulbricht for quite some time so it's not a complete surprise. I guess the whole "murder for hire" thing excluded him from the "non-violent" category. But how that got tacked on seems very odd; the judge basically said "we didn't really handle it in the court case and it wasn't a charge, but it was mentioned a few times and it seemed basically true, so I included it in the sentencing". Like, ehh, okay? To be honest, I don't really understand much of the logic ("logic") of the US justice system....
- mrandish 2y ago
  Judges are allowed to consider some evidence during sentencing which was not presented at trial. The standard for this evidence is lower than the "beyond a shadow of doubt" standard required for a criminal conviction. This is allowed because during sentencing the judge is considering information related to the history and character of the defendant. The 'hiring an online hitman' (who was an FBI informant) allegation was never charged or tried. Even if it hadn't been obvious entrapment, it might well have evaporated under discovery and cross-examination by a competent defense. Including such evidence in sentencing consideration is not uncontroversial in the U.S. However, it can cut both ways, in that a judge can consider extenuating circumstances in a defendant's life to reduce sentencing. We want judges to evaluate cases and make sentencing adjustments where appropriate. So, I don't think I'd do away with the practice. The real issue is that this specific judge went absolutely bonkers far beyond the 20 years the prosecution asked for during sentencing (which was already very high) and sentenced Ross to two life sentences plus 40 years without parole. Most of us who are happy that Ross was pardoned agree that he was guilty and deserved a jail sentence for the crimes he was convicted of. The only problem is the sentence was so wildly excessive for a non-violent, first-time offender. Compared to guidelines and other sentences it was just crazy and wrong. Ross has served over ten years. Now he's free. That's probably about right.
  - azinman2 2y ago
    Calling him a non-violent first time offender is very odd given the magnitude of what his crimes were. He created a very large scale marketplace for all things illegal. Independent of his own hiring of hit men (hello non-violent?), selling substances that lead to overdoses, guns, bomb making materials, etc is certainly my definition of violent. Then add the scale; I fully agree with life sentence without chance of parole. This pardon is shameful.
    - idunnoman1222 2y ago
      The silk road did not sell guns and bombs.
      - azinman2 2y ago
        I saw it when it was active.
      - gehwartzen 2y ago
        Yup. And just for some context regarding guns at the time; during the years Silk Road was active it was perfectly legal for me (in the state of Virginia) to buy a gun from another citizen cash in hand without ever showing an ID, filling out a BoS, or any paperwork whatsoever.
      - etc-hosts 2y ago
        I don't understand why people keep stating Silk Road did not sell guns. Here's a thread in a forum where someone quotes Ulbricht's message stating Silk Road will no longer sell guns. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466#msg1079466 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466#msg...
  - butlike 2y ago
    On the one hand you say we should retain judges making sentencing adjustments where appropriate, but who judges the appropriateness of the adjustments? It sounds like if an extenuating circumstance resonates with a judge, then the sentence will get modified. Sentencing shouldn't be based on a single person's "feelings."
- etc-hosts 2y ago
  I was at the sentencing, I do not remember the judge mentioning the murder-for-hire cases. To me it was obvious that the prosecution defense and judge had agreed beforehand to not mention it. The judge gave plenty of other reasons for the harsh sentence.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Madoff got 150 years for non-violent charges (and he didn't even try to have anyone killed). Died in prison.
- t-writescode 2y ago
  It is wildly harmful and an escalation of monstrous practices to look at one or several unjust actions and/or sentences and declare that those who do worse than the person who was dealt out such a retribution should receive an even longer sentence. If someone gets 10 years for smoking weed, the solution is not to put someone in prison for 20 years for punching someone.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I wasn't implying that either Ulbricht or Madoff's sentences were unjust.
  - cbsmith 2y ago
    On the same principle, noting that someone who punched someone got one day in jail is not a good justification for why someone shouldn't get two days in jail for smoking weed.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I know this is all semantics, but my State made weed legal a while ago. So the justification for smoking weed -> Jail is a whole lot higher.
      - cbsmith 2y ago
        It's not all semantics. You are providing an entirely different justification for why someone shouldn't get two days in jail for smoking weed.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
CSSer 2y ago
> non-violent charges Although the murder-for-hire charges were dropped, transcripts published by Wired in 2015[0] show Ross Ulbricht openly discussing contract killings: he haggles over price, suggests interrogation, and even provides personal details about a target’s family (“Wife + 3 kids”). These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York, making further prosecution moot—but the transcripts themselves factored into his sentencing. No killings occurred (he was likely scammed), yet the conversations challenge the notion that his crimes were purely non-violent. He was willing to have someone killed to protect his idea. [0]: https://archive.is/pRG3U https://archive.is/pRG3U.
- Springtime 2y ago
  > These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York It was further complicated because a couple of the law enforcement officers involved with setting up one of the six murder-for-hire scams* stole the Bitcoin Ulbricht paid and it was also felt that trying to prosecute based solely on the other chat logs would have been difficult. The FBI agent who arrested Ulbricht was interviewed about it recently[1]. * The other five are said to not have been law enforcement, which makes it curious the number of times Ulbricht was scammed in this manner. [1] https://risky.biz/RB770/ https://risky.biz/RB770/
  - CSSer 2y ago
    The charges, sure. The ethical and moral implications, no.
- sschueller 2y ago
  The murder for hire was done with the admin account which was called "Dread Pirate Roberts" from the novel "The Princess Bride". The thing about the name is that is passed on over and over. The admin has claimed multiple times that he is not the original nor first administrator (Ross) of the silk road. In addition you have the guy that was supposed to be murdered also claiming that it could not have been Ross. The murder for hire case was very weak and then in addition you had the two federal agents working the murder for hire case charged for stealing bitcoins.
kernal 2y ago
> I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or even having a principled position regarding Ross' case. This is probably the most ridiculous comment in this thread. Trump even spoke at the Libertarian convention and specifically mentioned how unjust the sentence was and that he would pardon Ross as one of his campaign promises and he delivered. Trump saw parallels between the attack on Ross and the politically motivated law fare the democrats attacked him with. I think the real issue you have with this pardon is that Trump did it and not some democrat.
- cbg0 2y ago
  > Trump saw parallels between the attack on Ross and the politically motivated law fare the democrats attacked him with. How exactly was it politically motivated law fare?
  - speakfreely 2y ago
    I think he's referring to the NY state case, which is difficult to dispute that it was done for political purposes. Although I'm sure Trump would say it applies to the federal classified documents case, as well.
- mrandish 2y ago
  Actually, I support neither major political party. I'm probably closest to a moderate "free markets, free minds" libertarian (note: the small "l" means I'm not in, or aligned with, the national Libertarian Party). I haven't voted for any candidate from either major party for decades. I greatly disapprove of Biden, Harris and Trump equally, along with almost all state and federal politicians of both parties. There are less than a handful of national-level politicians I would trust to dog sit, much less run my country. Interestingly, I get hate from nearly everyone whose bought into either side of the political mainstream, and not because I dislike their candidate (few serious people would argue even their favored candidate doesn't have significant negatives). No, people can't stand that I don't dislike the other candidate/party more than I dislike their preferred candidate/party. It's bizarre because it seems entirely reasonable to have concluded that all the major party presidential candidates are so flawed, each in their own uniquely terrible ways, that they are beneath any serious comparison of which may be less bad. It's simply beyond reasonable discourse to engage in evaluating whether a dog shit sandwich might taste better or worse than a cat shit sandwich. They are all animal shit sandwiches. I'm responding because you're objecting to my mild statement about Trump's likelihood of having a principled position regarding Ross' case and thus you may have assumed I favor the other candidate or party. Hardly! This is especially galling because I've had to defend Trump, who I dislike as much as Biden/Harris, against reflexive "Orange Man Bad" attacks - if only to point out, sometimes Trump does things which are good. And the same was true of Biden. Both of them have done good things - even if only in the sense of a broken clock being right twice a day. To be clear, my observation about Trump not basing many of his political positions on long-held, fundamental principles applies equally to both major parties. Neither party is grounded in principle. In recent decades, both parties have abandoned so many of their own long-held, traditional "left/right" pillar positions judged by how they actual govern when in power, if not in their campaign claims, as to now be mostly incoherent. Neither party can seriously claim they arrive at their current political positions by deriving them from deep, unchanging principles. Once again, I'm not making a partisan judgement for or against either. This is simply a factual statement. Neither party's platform positions or political actions over time are self-consistent enough to be grounded in principle. At most, they try to later market the political calculations they've made for pragmatic, contextual reasons as aligned with some principle - but that's just transparent retconning to pander to their base. This is obviously true because no voter can reliably predict what their own party's (or candidate's) position might be on some enitrely new issue in advance. In the case of Ross, Trump came very close to granting a pardon at the end of his term in 2020. He ultimately didn't pardon Ross due to the uncharged, untried allegations of Ross hiring an online hitman. Trump pardoned Ross now despite the same things still being true. The reasons Trump cited for the pardon were the excessive prosecution and sentence, but those things were also equally true in 2020. So, while I think it's just that Ross is free after over 11 years in a FedMax prison, that's why I don't believe Trump's reasoning was grounded in principle. And it has zero to do with liking Biden/Democrats more or Trump/Republicans less (because I dislike both equally). If Biden had pardoned Ross it would also not have been for principled reasons.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
> TWO life sentences plus 40 years - without the possibility of parole IMHO convicting somebody of such a thing is a crime in itself. Simply not excusable. Especially when the crime is essentially a form of white collar crime at best. Bank robbers, drug dealers, and some actual murderers often get more lenient sentences than that. I think this was a case of the justice system being abused to make a political point. Casually destroying somebody's life to make a political point should be criminal in itself (with appropriate sentences and public disgrace). I don't agree with Trump's politics. But this seems like he's righting a clear and obvious wrong; so good for him. Regardless of his motivations.
vasco 2y ago
The numbers of pardons granted per president is interesting: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- mrandish 2y ago
  It is interesting but, if I'm understanding the stats being tracked there, it's about petitions received and granted. However, many of the recent pardons by both Biden and Trump were unusual and controversial because they were either never petitioned, preemptive (in the case of Biden's family, staff & political allies) or granted to broad groups (in the case of Trump Jan 6th protesters). I'm not sure they are reflected on the site, or at least not yet, and if/when they are, how the site would reflect one pardon impacting dozens or hundreds of people. In general, the recent wave of pardons in the last month reflect the trend over the last 20 years of pardons by both parties being increasingly political, self-interested and granted to connected donors who mount targeted campaigns. Sadly, it's not a great look. Yet I believe the pardon process can, and should, serve an important function of being a final check and balance to correct prosecutorial and judicial excess when it occurs. I'd be happier if the majority of pardons were commutations of grossly excessive sentences in cases most people have never heard of. Hopefully, many of the more unusual and controversial recent pardons were a final paroxysm in response to the increases in politically-related prosecutions or threats of such prosecutions by partisans on both sides. Regardless of the validity (or lack thereof) of these prosecutions (or threats), it's clear many were pursued more aggressively, timed or conducted with at least one eye on either influencing political optics or retribution. Overall, it's certainly not been a shining moment for our republic. Both parties share the blame and need to do better.
- leobg 2y ago
  Most Pardons: Clinton & Reagan (4/month). Fewest Pardons: Bush senior / Biden (1.5/month) Since Reagan.
  - 2y ago
jjallen 2y ago
But he’s only served a tiny fraction of what you say was an unjust sentence. So the jury’s still out as to whether he’s served enough time. Other hard drug dealers get way more time than Ross has served. Its astonishing that granting pardons to drug dealers and attempted murderers is something Trump sees as one of the more urgent matters affecting the most powerful nation on Earth. I wish this weren’t true.
- slavik81 2y ago
  He's served over ten years. That's 1/8th of an average lifespan. It would be a fairly normal sentence for second degree murder where I'm from.
  - azinman2 2y ago
    And in Singapore drug dealers get death penalty. Wherever your from seems extremely lenient.
    - idunnoman1222 2y ago
      And where you are seems extremely insane. Literally every adult I know has done an illegal drug at some point.
      - cbozeman 2y ago
        It's not insane, it depends on what you value. If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in: Swift capture Swift trial Swift execution And with those three things, you get a highly ordered, law-abiding society, because it becomes common knowledge that breaking the law results in death, guaranteed, so unless you're just stupid or insane, you don't break the law. If you don't value that kind of clockwork societal order, then you get... Western civilization. Frankly I'll take the chaos of our Western civilization over the stifling draconian societal order of places like Singapore any day of the week.
knodi123 2y ago
> sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender First time offender?!?!? Applying that term to a guy who spent years traveling around the world under multiple fake IDs while using state-level security on his hardware and racking up law violations every single day seems like an absurd stretch. I mean, come on. By that logic, Al Capone was a first time offender when the feds finally nailed him for the first time. Pablo Escobar was a first time offender when he finally got nabbed. Good lord. "First time offense" applies to your _first offense_. Not relevant when you've committed thousands of offenses over years while living on the run.

arp242 2y ago

> Biden should have already pardoned Ross because that crazy sentence shouldn't have happened in the first place. Biden did commute the sentence of several other non-violent cases just last week or thereabouts, and Trump has been talking about Ulbricht for quite some time so it's not a complete surprise. I guess the whole "murder for hire" thing excluded him from the "non-violent" category. But how that got tacked on seems very odd; the judge basically said "we didn't really handle it in the court case and it wasn't a charge, but it was mentioned a few times and it seemed basically true, so I included it in the sentencing". Like, ehh, okay? To be honest, I don't really understand much of the logic ("logic") of the US justice system....

mrandish 2y ago
Judges are allowed to consider some evidence during sentencing which was not presented at trial. The standard for this evidence is lower than the "beyond a shadow of doubt" standard required for a criminal conviction. This is allowed because during sentencing the judge is considering information related to the history and character of the defendant. The 'hiring an online hitman' (who was an FBI informant) allegation was never charged or tried. Even if it hadn't been obvious entrapment, it might well have evaporated under discovery and cross-examination by a competent defense. Including such evidence in sentencing consideration is not uncontroversial in the U.S. However, it can cut both ways, in that a judge can consider extenuating circumstances in a defendant's life to reduce sentencing. We want judges to evaluate cases and make sentencing adjustments where appropriate. So, I don't think I'd do away with the practice. The real issue is that this specific judge went absolutely bonkers far beyond the 20 years the prosecution asked for during sentencing (which was already very high) and sentenced Ross to two life sentences plus 40 years without parole. Most of us who are happy that Ross was pardoned agree that he was guilty and deserved a jail sentence for the crimes he was convicted of. The only problem is the sentence was so wildly excessive for a non-violent, first-time offender. Compared to guidelines and other sentences it was just crazy and wrong. Ross has served over ten years. Now he's free. That's probably about right.
- azinman2 2y ago
  Calling him a non-violent first time offender is very odd given the magnitude of what his crimes were. He created a very large scale marketplace for all things illegal. Independent of his own hiring of hit men (hello non-violent?), selling substances that lead to overdoses, guns, bomb making materials, etc is certainly my definition of violent. Then add the scale; I fully agree with life sentence without chance of parole. This pardon is shameful.
  - idunnoman1222 2y ago
    The silk road did not sell guns and bombs.
    - azinman2 2y ago
      I saw it when it was active.
    - gehwartzen 2y ago
      Yup. And just for some context regarding guns at the time; during the years Silk Road was active it was perfectly legal for me (in the state of Virginia) to buy a gun from another citizen cash in hand without ever showing an ID, filling out a BoS, or any paperwork whatsoever.
    - etc-hosts 2y ago
      I don't understand why people keep stating Silk Road did not sell guns. Here's a thread in a forum where someone quotes Ulbricht's message stating Silk Road will no longer sell guns. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466#msg1079466 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66587.msg1079466#msg...
- butlike 2y ago
  On the one hand you say we should retain judges making sentencing adjustments where appropriate, but who judges the appropriateness of the adjustments? It sounds like if an extenuating circumstance resonates with a judge, then the sentence will get modified. Sentencing shouldn't be based on a single person's "feelings."
etc-hosts 2y ago
I was at the sentencing, I do not remember the judge mentioning the murder-for-hire cases. To me it was obvious that the prosecution defense and judge had agreed beforehand to not mention it. The judge gave plenty of other reasons for the harsh sentence.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Madoff got 150 years for non-violent charges (and he didn't even try to have anyone killed). Died in prison.

t-writescode 2y ago
It is wildly harmful and an escalation of monstrous practices to look at one or several unjust actions and/or sentences and declare that those who do worse than the person who was dealt out such a retribution should receive an even longer sentence. If someone gets 10 years for smoking weed, the solution is not to put someone in prison for 20 years for punching someone.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  I wasn't implying that either Ulbricht or Madoff's sentences were unjust.
- cbsmith 2y ago
  On the same principle, noting that someone who punched someone got one day in jail is not a good justification for why someone shouldn't get two days in jail for smoking weed.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I know this is all semantics, but my State made weed legal a while ago. So the justification for smoking weed -> Jail is a whole lot higher.
    - cbsmith 2y ago
      It's not all semantics. You are providing an entirely different justification for why someone shouldn't get two days in jail for smoking weed.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago

CSSer 2y ago

> non-violent charges Although the murder-for-hire charges were dropped, transcripts published by Wired in 2015[0] show Ross Ulbricht openly discussing contract killings: he haggles over price, suggests interrogation, and even provides personal details about a target’s family (“Wife + 3 kids”). These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York, making further prosecution moot—but the transcripts themselves factored into his sentencing. No killings occurred (he was likely scammed), yet the conversations challenge the notion that his crimes were purely non-violent. He was willing to have someone killed to protect his idea. [0]: https://archive.is/pRG3U https://archive.is/pRG3U.

Springtime 2y ago
> These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York It was further complicated because a couple of the law enforcement officers involved with setting up one of the six murder-for-hire scams* stole the Bitcoin Ulbricht paid and it was also felt that trying to prosecute based solely on the other chat logs would have been difficult. The FBI agent who arrested Ulbricht was interviewed about it recently[1]. * The other five are said to not have been law enforcement, which makes it curious the number of times Ulbricht was scammed in this manner. [1] https://risky.biz/RB770/ https://risky.biz/RB770/
- CSSer 2y ago
  The charges, sure. The ethical and moral implications, no.
sschueller 2y ago
The murder for hire was done with the admin account which was called "Dread Pirate Roberts" from the novel "The Princess Bride". The thing about the name is that is passed on over and over. The admin has claimed multiple times that he is not the original nor first administrator (Ross) of the silk road. In addition you have the guy that was supposed to be murdered also claiming that it could not have been Ross. The murder for hire case was very weak and then in addition you had the two federal agents working the murder for hire case charged for stealing bitcoins.

kernal 2y ago

> I don't credit Trump in any way for doing "the right thing" or even having a principled position regarding Ross' case. This is probably the most ridiculous comment in this thread. Trump even spoke at the Libertarian convention and specifically mentioned how unjust the sentence was and that he would pardon Ross as one of his campaign promises and he delivered. Trump saw parallels between the attack on Ross and the politically motivated law fare the democrats attacked him with. I think the real issue you have with this pardon is that Trump did it and not some democrat.

cbg0 2y ago
> Trump saw parallels between the attack on Ross and the politically motivated law fare the democrats attacked him with. How exactly was it politically motivated law fare?
- speakfreely 2y ago
  I think he's referring to the NY state case, which is difficult to dispute that it was done for political purposes. Although I'm sure Trump would say it applies to the federal classified documents case, as well.
mrandish 2y ago
Actually, I support neither major political party. I'm probably closest to a moderate "free markets, free minds" libertarian (note: the small "l" means I'm not in, or aligned with, the national Libertarian Party). I haven't voted for any candidate from either major party for decades. I greatly disapprove of Biden, Harris and Trump equally, along with almost all state and federal politicians of both parties. There are less than a handful of national-level politicians I would trust to dog sit, much less run my country. Interestingly, I get hate from nearly everyone whose bought into either side of the political mainstream, and not because I dislike their candidate (few serious people would argue even their favored candidate doesn't have significant negatives). No, people can't stand that I don't dislike the other candidate/party more than I dislike their preferred candidate/party. It's bizarre because it seems entirely reasonable to have concluded that all the major party presidential candidates are so flawed, each in their own uniquely terrible ways, that they are beneath any serious comparison of which may be less bad. It's simply beyond reasonable discourse to engage in evaluating whether a dog shit sandwich might taste better or worse than a cat shit sandwich. They are all animal shit sandwiches. I'm responding because you're objecting to my mild statement about Trump's likelihood of having a principled position regarding Ross' case and thus you may have assumed I favor the other candidate or party. Hardly! This is especially galling because I've had to defend Trump, who I dislike as much as Biden/Harris, against reflexive "Orange Man Bad" attacks - if only to point out, sometimes Trump does things which are good. And the same was true of Biden. Both of them have done good things - even if only in the sense of a broken clock being right twice a day. To be clear, my observation about Trump not basing many of his political positions on long-held, fundamental principles applies equally to both major parties. Neither party is grounded in principle. In recent decades, both parties have abandoned so many of their own long-held, traditional "left/right" pillar positions judged by how they actual govern when in power, if not in their campaign claims, as to now be mostly incoherent. Neither party can seriously claim they arrive at their current political positions by deriving them from deep, unchanging principles. Once again, I'm not making a partisan judgement for or against either. This is simply a factual statement. Neither party's platform positions or political actions over time are self-consistent enough to be grounded in principle. At most, they try to later market the political calculations they've made for pragmatic, contextual reasons as aligned with some principle - but that's just transparent retconning to pander to their base. This is obviously true because no voter can reliably predict what their own party's (or candidate's) position might be on some enitrely new issue in advance. In the case of Ross, Trump came very close to granting a pardon at the end of his term in 2020. He ultimately didn't pardon Ross due to the uncharged, untried allegations of Ross hiring an online hitman. Trump pardoned Ross now despite the same things still being true. The reasons Trump cited for the pardon were the excessive prosecution and sentence, but those things were also equally true in 2020. So, while I think it's just that Ross is free after over 11 years in a FedMax prison, that's why I don't believe Trump's reasoning was grounded in principle. And it has zero to do with liking Biden/Democrats more or Trump/Republicans less (because I dislike both equally). If Biden had pardoned Ross it would also not have been for principled reasons.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

> TWO life sentences plus 40 years - without the possibility of parole IMHO convicting somebody of such a thing is a crime in itself. Simply not excusable. Especially when the crime is essentially a form of white collar crime at best. Bank robbers, drug dealers, and some actual murderers often get more lenient sentences than that. I think this was a case of the justice system being abused to make a political point. Casually destroying somebody's life to make a political point should be criminal in itself (with appropriate sentences and public disgrace). I don't agree with Trump's politics. But this seems like he's righting a clear and obvious wrong; so good for him. Regardless of his motivations.

vasco 2y ago

The numbers of pardons granted per president is interesting: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mrandish 2y ago
It is interesting but, if I'm understanding the stats being tracked there, it's about petitions received and granted. However, many of the recent pardons by both Biden and Trump were unusual and controversial because they were either never petitioned, preemptive (in the case of Biden's family, staff & political allies) or granted to broad groups (in the case of Trump Jan 6th protesters). I'm not sure they are reflected on the site, or at least not yet, and if/when they are, how the site would reflect one pardon impacting dozens or hundreds of people. In general, the recent wave of pardons in the last month reflect the trend over the last 20 years of pardons by both parties being increasingly political, self-interested and granted to connected donors who mount targeted campaigns. Sadly, it's not a great look. Yet I believe the pardon process can, and should, serve an important function of being a final check and balance to correct prosecutorial and judicial excess when it occurs. I'd be happier if the majority of pardons were commutations of grossly excessive sentences in cases most people have never heard of. Hopefully, many of the more unusual and controversial recent pardons were a final paroxysm in response to the increases in politically-related prosecutions or threats of such prosecutions by partisans on both sides. Regardless of the validity (or lack thereof) of these prosecutions (or threats), it's clear many were pursued more aggressively, timed or conducted with at least one eye on either influencing political optics or retribution. Overall, it's certainly not been a shining moment for our republic. Both parties share the blame and need to do better.
leobg 2y ago
Most Pardons: Clinton & Reagan (4/month). Fewest Pardons: Bush senior / Biden (1.5/month) Since Reagan.
- 2y ago

jjallen 2y ago

But he’s only served a tiny fraction of what you say was an unjust sentence. So the jury’s still out as to whether he’s served enough time. Other hard drug dealers get way more time than Ross has served. Its astonishing that granting pardons to drug dealers and attempted murderers is something Trump sees as one of the more urgent matters affecting the most powerful nation on Earth. I wish this weren’t true.

slavik81 2y ago
He's served over ten years. That's 1/8th of an average lifespan. It would be a fairly normal sentence for second degree murder where I'm from.
- azinman2 2y ago
  And in Singapore drug dealers get death penalty. Wherever your from seems extremely lenient.
  - idunnoman1222 2y ago
    And where you are seems extremely insane. Literally every adult I know has done an illegal drug at some point.
    - cbozeman 2y ago
      It's not insane, it depends on what you value. If you value societal order above all else, then you want extremely horrific punishments for crimes, you want near-absolute certainty that you'll be punished for criminal acts, and you want capture and trial to be swift, so that people know that breaking the law results in: Swift capture Swift trial Swift execution And with those three things, you get a highly ordered, law-abiding society, because it becomes common knowledge that breaking the law results in death, guaranteed, so unless you're just stupid or insane, you don't break the law. If you don't value that kind of clockwork societal order, then you get... Western civilization. Frankly I'll take the chaos of our Western civilization over the stifling draconian societal order of places like Singapore any day of the week.

knodi123 2y ago

> sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender First time offender?!?!? Applying that term to a guy who spent years traveling around the world under multiple fake IDs while using state-level security on his hardware and racking up law violations every single day seems like an absurd stretch. I mean, come on. By that logic, Al Capone was a first time offender when the feds finally nailed him for the first time. Pablo Escobar was a first time offender when he finally got nabbed. Good lord. "First time offense" applies to your _first offense_. Not relevant when you've committed thousands of offenses over years while living on the run.