I've never seen it work. Then again, in the trials I've been involved in [many, I suspect, by HN standards, but few compared to a practicing criminal attorney],

I've never seen it work. Then again, in the trials I've been involved in [many, I suspect, by HN standards, but few compared to a practicing criminal attorney], nobody has ever been acquitted, for any reason. (At least in these cases, it wasn't because the system is rigged against them -- it's because the U.S. Attorney in the district where I worked is very politically visible, and tends only to take slam dunk cases to trial.) As for why he didn't plead out: who knows. It's possible the government didn't want to give him much of a deal, given the high profile of the case, and their apparent mountain of evidence. Occasionally, the government actually wants to go to trial. It's also possible that Ulbricht was either desperate to be exonerated or, relatedly, had a somewhat deluded sense of his prospects at trial (either through self-delusion, or through an overly optimistic lawyer). Some people insist on their day in court, no matter how ill-advised, from a practical perspective, that may be.