8 ms·

So is life in prison a possibility?

• rl3 12y ago
  "(Bloomberg) -- The founder of the Silk Road website faces life in prison ... " Yes.
  • venomsnake 12y ago
    I find it absurd that a person that has not committed any violence could face a life in prison. And probably the silk road decreased by some degree gang violence.
    • sp332 12y ago
      Dealing meth and other hard drugs can seriously damage people, physically. Edit: Methamphetamine is a neurotoxin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Neurotoxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Neurotoxicity
      • tedks 12y ago
        Dealing McDonald's food is more addictive (look at all the people it hooks compared to meth) and far more physically damaging.
        • deleted 12y ago
          [deleted]
        • sp332 12y ago
          Who's hooked on McDonald's food? And I'm pretty sure McD's isn't that bad.
          • kibibu 12y ago
            I'm old enough to remember when arcade cabinets used to start with "Winners Don't Use McDonalds" before the intro screen.
        • ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
          mcdonalds is far more physically damaging than meth? Why do I get the feeling you've never been around either?
          • tedks 12y ago
            I guess the total cost of meth would be hard to calculate, but I'm totally confident that the health costs tied to obesity are far more damaging than meth. Meth just isn't as common as obesity.
            • ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
              People do crazy shit on meth though, add that to your calculations. Don't think anyone's really killed anyone for a cheeseburger.
              • tedks 12y ago
                Yes, this is precisely the indirect cost I alluded to in my immediately previous comment. That said, far more (several orders of magnitude more) people die from cheeseburgers than (directly or indirectly) from meth. In human lives, McDonald's is by far the greater risk. We need a War on Food.
        • DanBC 12y ago
          People are not "addicted" in any meaningful sense of that word to McDonalds. Misuse of language harms the works that people do to tackle obesogenic companies like McDonalds.
      • venomsnake 12y ago
        He was not dealing IIRC. Also the people bought the stuff on their own free will. So he made a website. I would have preferred to see him convicted on the stuff he was not charged with - trying to organize hits.
        • sp332 12y ago
          People who are addicted have limited free will.
          • icebraining 12y ago
            Just like everyone else.
      • spacemanmatt 12y ago
        Using is a self-harm. Why is this legislated?
        • FireBeyond 12y ago
          Using may be a self-harm. Acquisition is often not. And once use makes acquisition a problem, violence ensues. And even when it doesn't, the ability to defend oneself from the medical ravages against the body diminishes and the cost is places upon society. The society that chose, one way or another, to cut that off at the source. Or attempt to. Personally? I don't have much issue with the use of many (though not all) drugs, in and of themselves. But they aren't used in an isolated vacuum.
          • icebraining 12y ago
            the ability to defend oneself from the medical ravages against the body diminishes and the cost is places upon society The problem with that argument is that, not only is limiting it to drugs is arbitrary (why not convict the guy who becomes morbidly obese or extremely anorexic?), but I think it often is simply wrong, because it ignores the real alternative. The medical bills of an heroin addict may be expensive, but a guy who dies in his 60s from drug use is probably much cheaper if he had died in his 90s, possibly with some chronic condition. Besides, imprisoning him is probably more expensive still, so it's cutting your nose to spite the face anyway.
            • digler990 12y ago
              > convict the guy who becomes morbidly obese or extremely anorexic Show me a "moridly obese"/anorexic who committed violent crime for his/her habit.
              • JohnBooty 12y ago
                Try taking my dessert away from me sometime!
              • icebraining 12y ago
    • FireBeyond 12y ago
      Yeah, I'm inclined to be skeptical about that claim. I'm more inclined to believe that the union of "drug dealers regularly involved in violence" and "drug dealers who reign in their violent ways to instead spend time on the computer filling SR orders" is near zero.
      • venomsnake 12y ago
        Of course it is near zero. But when demand dries up, so do the margins. And with profitability down violence just does not make sense from cost/benefit analysis.
    • _pius 12y ago
      And probably the silk road decreased by some degree gang violence. Sure, so did Walter White.
    • ars 12y ago
      It certainly happens. The high profile case of Sholom Rubashkin for example: Various forms of financial fraud and an effective (due to age) life sentence.
    • res0nat0r 12y ago
      Should Bernie Madoff be let free? He's ruined more lives than many drug dealers, but never killed anyone.
      • nacs 12y ago
        Although Madoff may not have directly killed anyone, his defrauding people did lead to a number of suicides, including his son: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5503929/Bernard-Madoff-fraud-victim-committed-suicide-to-avoid-bankruptcy-shame.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5503929/Bernard-Madof...
      • gojock 12y ago
        Madoff had victims. Ulbricht did not.
        • res0nat0r 12y ago
          Debatable. Also if he wasn't talking to an undercover FBI hit man there would have been, so there's that....
    • serve_yay 12y ago
      He tried to put a hit out on somebody. (I realize that that wasn't part of the charges he was convicted on here.)
  • brotoss 12y ago
    Yea, I got that buddy. The point of my question was whether life is in the realm of possibility when news outlets often report the absolute statutory max that the offender could theoretically receive yet they end being sentenced for less.
• Touche 12y ago
  Definitely possible.
• shebson 12y ago
  Yes, several of those convictions carry the potential for a life sentence. Additionally, the New York Times reports that the two most serious convictions carry minimum sentences of 20 years and 10 years (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/nyregion/man-behind-silk-road-website-is-convicted-on-all-counts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/nyregion/man-behind-silk-r...).
• viewer5 12y ago
  I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of being imprisoned for the remainder of your life. Why do they even do it, instead of just execution? Might as well, right? Especially for something like this. I haven't been following it closely at all, but presumably he hasn't stabbed/shot anyone, right? So why isn't it "prison for N years then we keep an eye on you for the rest of your life"? That'd be a whoooole lot cheaper than locking him up until he dies, and a much more reasonable punishment, IMO, for anyone who hasn't proved themselves some kind of psycho-killer.
  • jMyles 12y ago
    It's cases like these that make it difficult to believe that our system is about justice rather than political repression.
    • eric_h 12y ago
      Agreed, if Ulbricht hadn't tried to call a hit out on someone, life in prison would seem unreasonable. Based on the information we have, though, it seems pretty certain that he did. Whether or not the hit went through, he tried to do it, which definitely puts him on the sociopathic spectrum. If I had a button on some website that would cause someone to be killed, I wouldn't click it. A button on some website that enabled people to get the drugs they want, though? I wouldn't have quite the same moral quandaries. Don't get me wrong, the hard drugs are bad and in essence the people who use them pathologically are victims of their own brain chemistry; I'm just not so certain that life in prison for someone who enables that is actually a solution to that problem (but the effectiveness of prohibition by force is a whole 'nother story). It seems clear to me that the motivation for the prosecutors and LEOs involved is to crush the concept of an unregulated, international, black market. I'm definitely not convinced that this prosecution will actually produce the desired goal. Silk road was just the first of many darknet black markets that emerged to fulfill a need. Others are still thriving and as they get shut down, more will spring up in their place, gradually improving their ability to evade detection/termination.
  • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    'keeping an eye on' turns out to not work very well. Too easy to just disappear and become another person. So, for someone who will misbehave again its either life in prison or death.
• trcollinson 12y ago
  Absolutely it is, on a few grounds. First off just looking at the various conspiracy charges (Money Laundering conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, and criminal empire conspiracy) can lead to numerous decades each in jail time. Functionally speaking this would lead to a life sentence but it could be something like 200 years in prison without possibility of parol. On the count of conspiracy to commit murder, 6 times over, if those are ever brought to trial, can come with an actual life sentence, or life sentences. It is very likely he could face numerous sentences of life in prison plus a number of years of prison on top of that. All of this depends on the judge and how s/he would like to handling the sentencing portion of this trial, which probably will not happen for weeks or months. As there was no plea agreement accepted by the defendant, it is quite likely that the prosecution has always believes that he would be found guilty and pay a very high price for his crimes. Because of this they either a) never gave him a plea deal to consider or b) gave a very costly plea deal which wouldn't have been much better than just going through the trial and going to jail for life.
  • Zikes 12y ago
    I thought a conviction was sentenced based on the most severe available for a set of charges, not all charges cumulatively. There were a lot of articles recently about how the media often used some common misunderstanding to say someone faced "centuries" behind bars for something that probably would've maxed out around 20 years.
    • mikeyouse 12y ago
      Running a "Continuing Criminal Enterprise" (one of the charges he was just convicted of) comes with a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence. http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2014/2014-chapter-2-d#2d15 http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2014/2014-chapter-2-d#... Depending on how everything else stacks up, he could certainly see 25+ years, but most of the sentences will run concurrently.
    • stonemetal 12y ago
      Consecutive is the default if the judge doesn't specify. Some laws require consecutive. Other than that it is up to the judge to specify. http://criminal.lawyers.com/criminal-law-basics/how-do-multiple-convictions-affect-my-sentence.html http://criminal.lawyers.com/criminal-law-basics/how-do-multi... >If a judge wants to order the sentences to run consecutively or concurrently, she must state so specifically in the sentencing order, which is the court document that sets a defendant's sentences. If she doesn't do so, the sentences will run consecutively automatically.