6 ms·

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

by 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.
- blackbagboys 12y ago
  It would be trivial for the government to keep a 24/7 watch on any given individual. If you're talking about someone who has already been convicted at trial, there's no technical or legal barrier to monitoring Ulbricht both physically and digitally for the rest of his life. Practically speaking, of course, that's what's going to happen anyway.
  - digikata 12y ago
    The trivial way for someone to be watched 24/7 is a system called 'prison'.
digikata 12y ago
It's counter-intuitive, but execution seems to be a much more expensive option than life in prison. e.g. (semi-randomly picked links on the topic) http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31614 http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31614 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/considering-the-death-penalty-your-tax-dollars-at-work/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons... hmm maybe I'm misconstruing your comment though...
- protomyth 12y ago
  That and "governments make mistakes" are the two arguments you can use pretty effectively against the death penalty on people who are not morally opposed to it.
  - mark-r 12y ago
    The number of inmates being found innocent by new DNA tests is really frightening.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      Yes, it is. Personally, I have no problem with the state putting a bullet in the head of a murder, but the thought of a wrong verdict and some of the batsh_t crazy things courts have done leaves me fearful of any capital punishment. I am particularly unamused by some of the things prosecutors have done that have lead to false convictions and how few remedies and punishments for corrupt prosecutors. Plus, in the sad cold-blooded way of limited budgets, I can find no justification for spending the extra money. In a perfect world there would be no capital crimes committed. In a near perfect world courts would be 100% right. We live in neither and should act like it.
comex 12y ago
He did attempt to hire hitmen to murder several people, although he was not charged for doing so in this trial.
- jMyles 12y ago
  > He did attempt to hire hitmen to murder several people, although he was not charged for doing so in this trial. The viral spread of this narrative is exactly what the government counted on in this case. The problem: it's not true.
  - ikeboy 12y ago
    Why do you think it's not true? Remember that until the trial began, his defenders kept on saying he wasn't DPR and had nothing to do with Silk Road (including his mother), and then the defense admitted it in the beginning of the trial.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      The BTC payments to the supposed assassins were also sourced directly to Ulbricht's wallet, so if you're going to indulge in counterfactuals about the "hit man" story, they need to revolve around Ulbricht twice staging elaborate hits in order to... what? What's the thing a staged assassination could cover up that's worse than an assassination?
    - jMyles 12y ago
      The evidence is incredibly flimsy and has changed throughout. The most significant reason I believe these charges aren't true is that the government essentially revealed its hand in trumpeting them so loudly at the bail proceeding and in public at that time, without yet charging him (the narrative is laid out here: http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-ulbricht/ http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-...). To me, I now need to see overwhelming evidence in order to buy this. And that does not exist, or at least hasn't been presented yet. So now, we have to look at what evidence does exist: the ludicrous alleged email exchange (here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-assassinations/ http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss...). I don't know about you, but this seems flatly unbelievable to me. And even if the dialogue weren't so Hollywood, let's not forget that the alleged victims don't even exist. And most importantly, if this is the only evidence, the government was obligated to say so a long time ago rather than the song and dance that occurred during the bail proceeding.
schrodinger 12y ago
Well one difference is, what if it was a false conviction? You can let a prisoner free, but you can't bring back the dead...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 12y ago
I agree that lengthy imprisonment should be very rare, certainly for a much smaller proportion of crimes than it is currently used in the US. The current US sentencing system is geared towards very high sentences though (anomalously high by just about any standards except perhaps China's). So it would require a fairly major reform to fix. Right now if anyone is convicted of a felony in a federal court it's really easy for the sentencing range to be decades, which is made worse by the fact that there are really a lot of federal felonies (and some of them are broadly written). One of the political/philosophical reasons is that the U.S. seems fonder than many countries of a retribution-based model of justice, where the goal of imprisoning someone is not only to protect society and dissuade future would-be criminals, but to "punish" them in a metaphysical sense. Many European countries have shifted in the past half-century to a more utilitarian model, in which the goal of the prison system is seen as almost purely targeted at reducing crimes. From that perspective, imprisoning people for particularly long periods of time often doesn't end up as a very appealing solution, admittedly depending strongly on how you weight factors.
njharman 12y ago
No take backs on execution. If (as too frequently is the case) original conviction is over turned you can say sorry and let the lifer out of prison.
- kethinov 12y ago
  Can't get those years spent in prison back after a false conviction either.
  - eric_h 12y ago
    Agreed - you can't reinstate a life, nor can you reinstate some fraction of a life. If the justice system fucks up and convicts an innocent man, it can't be undone, the damage is permanent. (Not saying Mr. Ulbricht is innocent, the evidence suggests otherwise, but still...)
  - njharman 12y ago
    Don't be dense. That's obvious. Equally obvious is that you can give back the future years innocent would have spent in prison. Unlike how you can't give back the future years of someone you killed
brainburn 12y ago
For one, in the US there exist a thing called 'private prison'. Meaning prisons are run by private companies, with the intent to make as much money as possible. Meaning laws are influenced by the money from these companies. It's fucking scary, really.
- opo 12y ago
  And in every other state there are much more powerful prison guard unions which have a huge influence on our laws. Info from wikipedia on the California prison guard union: "...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California. The union spends heavily on influencing political campaigns, and on lobbying legislators and other government officials. CCPOA also hires public relations firms and political polling firms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_O...
deleted 12y ago
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by viewer5 12y ago

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.

blackbagboys 12y ago
It would be trivial for the government to keep a 24/7 watch on any given individual. If you're talking about someone who has already been convicted at trial, there's no technical or legal barrier to monitoring Ulbricht both physically and digitally for the rest of his life. Practically speaking, of course, that's what's going to happen anyway.
- digikata 12y ago
  The trivial way for someone to be watched 24/7 is a system called 'prison'.

digikata 12y ago

It's counter-intuitive, but execution seems to be a much more expensive option than life in prison. e.g. (semi-randomly picked links on the topic) http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31614 http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31614 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/considering-the-death-penalty-your-tax-dollars-at-work/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons... hmm maybe I'm misconstruing your comment though...

protomyth 12y ago
That and "governments make mistakes" are the two arguments you can use pretty effectively against the death penalty on people who are not morally opposed to it.
- mark-r 12y ago
  The number of inmates being found innocent by new DNA tests is really frightening.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    Yes, it is. Personally, I have no problem with the state putting a bullet in the head of a murder, but the thought of a wrong verdict and some of the batsh_t crazy things courts have done leaves me fearful of any capital punishment. I am particularly unamused by some of the things prosecutors have done that have lead to false convictions and how few remedies and punishments for corrupt prosecutors. Plus, in the sad cold-blooded way of limited budgets, I can find no justification for spending the extra money. In a perfect world there would be no capital crimes committed. In a near perfect world courts would be 100% right. We live in neither and should act like it.

comex 12y ago

He did attempt to hire hitmen to murder several people, although he was not charged for doing so in this trial.

jMyles 12y ago
> He did attempt to hire hitmen to murder several people, although he was not charged for doing so in this trial. The viral spread of this narrative is exactly what the government counted on in this case. The problem: it's not true.
- ikeboy 12y ago
  Why do you think it's not true? Remember that until the trial began, his defenders kept on saying he wasn't DPR and had nothing to do with Silk Road (including his mother), and then the defense admitted it in the beginning of the trial.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The BTC payments to the supposed assassins were also sourced directly to Ulbricht's wallet, so if you're going to indulge in counterfactuals about the "hit man" story, they need to revolve around Ulbricht twice staging elaborate hits in order to... what? What's the thing a staged assassination could cover up that's worse than an assassination?
  - jMyles 12y ago
    The evidence is incredibly flimsy and has changed throughout. The most significant reason I believe these charges aren't true is that the government essentially revealed its hand in trumpeting them so loudly at the bail proceeding and in public at that time, without yet charging him (the narrative is laid out here: http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-ulbricht/ http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-...). To me, I now need to see overwhelming evidence in order to buy this. And that does not exist, or at least hasn't been presented yet. So now, we have to look at what evidence does exist: the ludicrous alleged email exchange (here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-assassinations/ http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss...). I don't know about you, but this seems flatly unbelievable to me. And even if the dialogue weren't so Hollywood, let's not forget that the alleged victims don't even exist. And most importantly, if this is the only evidence, the government was obligated to say so a long time ago rather than the song and dance that occurred during the bail proceeding.

schrodinger 12y ago

Well one difference is, what if it was a false conviction? You can let a prisoner free, but you can't bring back the dead...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

_delirium 12y ago

I agree that lengthy imprisonment should be very rare, certainly for a much smaller proportion of crimes than it is currently used in the US. The current US sentencing system is geared towards very high sentences though (anomalously high by just about any standards except perhaps China's). So it would require a fairly major reform to fix. Right now if anyone is convicted of a felony in a federal court it's really easy for the sentencing range to be decades, which is made worse by the fact that there are really a lot of federal felonies (and some of them are broadly written). One of the political/philosophical reasons is that the U.S. seems fonder than many countries of a retribution-based model of justice, where the goal of imprisoning someone is not only to protect society and dissuade future would-be criminals, but to "punish" them in a metaphysical sense. Many European countries have shifted in the past half-century to a more utilitarian model, in which the goal of the prison system is seen as almost purely targeted at reducing crimes. From that perspective, imprisoning people for particularly long periods of time often doesn't end up as a very appealing solution, admittedly depending strongly on how you weight factors.

njharman 12y ago

No take backs on execution. If (as too frequently is the case) original conviction is over turned you can say sorry and let the lifer out of prison.

kethinov 12y ago
Can't get those years spent in prison back after a false conviction either.
- eric_h 12y ago
  Agreed - you can't reinstate a life, nor can you reinstate some fraction of a life. If the justice system fucks up and convicts an innocent man, it can't be undone, the damage is permanent. (Not saying Mr. Ulbricht is innocent, the evidence suggests otherwise, but still...)
- njharman 12y ago
  Don't be dense. That's obvious. Equally obvious is that you can give back the future years innocent would have spent in prison. Unlike how you can't give back the future years of someone you killed

brainburn 12y ago

For one, in the US there exist a thing called 'private prison'. Meaning prisons are run by private companies, with the intent to make as much money as possible. Meaning laws are influenced by the money from these companies. It's fucking scary, really.

opo 12y ago
And in every other state there are much more powerful prison guard unions which have a huge influence on our laws. Info from wikipedia on the California prison guard union: "...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California. The union spends heavily on influencing political campaigns, and on lobbying legislators and other government officials. CCPOA also hires public relations firms and political polling firms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_O...

deleted 12y ago

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