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The main thing I would like to know is why did he hire the lawyer he did? His defense basically sold him up the river, as can be seen from the scathing comments

The main thing I would like to know is why did he hire the lawyer he did? His defense basically sold him up the river, as can be seen from the scathing comments from the judge. Is it still a fair trial if your lawyer is incompetent?

dublinben 12y ago
They were probably angling for the conviction to be overturned on appeal. There was almost no chance of getting a "not guilty" verdict in this situation.
- andrewpi 12y ago
  Ineffective assistance of counsel is a very difficult appeal to win.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    I doubt that would be the question of law the appeal hinged on, but some of the procedural issues with the case. The government never fully explained how the evidence abroad was legally located or acquired, which could unravel the entire case.
    - simplicio 12y ago
      Most of the case was based on evidence found on the laptop seized when Ulrich was arrested. Even if the Server evidence was thrown out (which itself doesn't seem likely, IMHO) Ulrich still would've faced substantially the same case. The chat-logs that were evidence for all but one of the attempted murders he was indicted for were found on the server, which might be part of the reason he wasn't charged with those. Though those probably would've been difficult to get a conviction on in anycase, since no one knows who the "hitman" really was.
simplicio 12y ago
It's possible to get a re-trial on the grounds of incompetent defence, but the bar is really high. And since Ulbricht is still using the same lawyer for his appeals, it doesn't look like he's trying that route. His defense did seem pretty poor, but given the amount of evidence against him, its not really clear what a "good defense" would've looked like.
- frozenport 12y ago
  Maybe borrow from OJ Simpson, repeatedly fail to login into the Silk Road admin panel, have him swear to find the real DPR, demand a jury of like-minded libertarian drug dealers?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dbbolton 12y ago
  From the Ars op-ed, it sounded like his best chance would have been to file a legal declaration of interest in the Iceland server and proceed to challenge its discovery- a course of action that the judge hinted at but that his attorney refused. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/op-ed-ross-ulbricht-got-a-fair-trial-but-not-a-fair-investigation/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/op-ed-ross-ulbric...
  - simplicio 12y ago
    It's not particularly clear they could have had it thrown out in anycase. And even if they did, there was more than enough information just on the laptop to tie him conclusively to Silk Road. So his lawyer threw a Hail Mary and decided to try and deny Ross owned the server at all. It didn't work, but going the other route wouldn't have either. I suspect a lot of the people who were pressing for Ross to challenge the seizure of the server are doing so because they're interested in the legal questions involved, rather than maximizing the chances of an innocence verdict. But in anycase, you generally can't get a re-trial based on incompetent counsel based just on strategic decisions, even if those decisions were poor ones. You need to show your lawyer was really asleep at the switch on a basic level, like giving the client factually wrong information, or going off to Cancun for a couple weeks instead of preparing a defence.
wickedlogic 12y ago
I'm looking forward to the day the http://nhlibertyforum.com/sessions/silk-road-how-the-government-won-the-case/ http://nhlibertyforum.com/sessions/silk-road-how-the-governm... video goes online. It was a very interesting presentation about the case.

dublinben 12y ago

They were probably angling for the conviction to be overturned on appeal. There was almost no chance of getting a "not guilty" verdict in this situation.

andrewpi 12y ago
Ineffective assistance of counsel is a very difficult appeal to win.
- dublinben 12y ago
  I doubt that would be the question of law the appeal hinged on, but some of the procedural issues with the case. The government never fully explained how the evidence abroad was legally located or acquired, which could unravel the entire case.
  - simplicio 12y ago
    Most of the case was based on evidence found on the laptop seized when Ulrich was arrested. Even if the Server evidence was thrown out (which itself doesn't seem likely, IMHO) Ulrich still would've faced substantially the same case. The chat-logs that were evidence for all but one of the attempted murders he was indicted for were found on the server, which might be part of the reason he wasn't charged with those. Though those probably would've been difficult to get a conviction on in anycase, since no one knows who the "hitman" really was.

simplicio 12y ago

It's possible to get a re-trial on the grounds of incompetent defence, but the bar is really high. And since Ulbricht is still using the same lawyer for his appeals, it doesn't look like he's trying that route. His defense did seem pretty poor, but given the amount of evidence against him, its not really clear what a "good defense" would've looked like.

frozenport 12y ago
Maybe borrow from OJ Simpson, repeatedly fail to login into the Silk Road admin panel, have him swear to find the real DPR, demand a jury of like-minded libertarian drug dealers?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dbbolton 12y ago
From the Ars op-ed, it sounded like his best chance would have been to file a legal declaration of interest in the Iceland server and proceed to challenge its discovery- a course of action that the judge hinted at but that his attorney refused. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/op-ed-ross-ulbricht-got-a-fair-trial-but-not-a-fair-investigation/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/op-ed-ross-ulbric...
- simplicio 12y ago
  It's not particularly clear they could have had it thrown out in anycase. And even if they did, there was more than enough information just on the laptop to tie him conclusively to Silk Road. So his lawyer threw a Hail Mary and decided to try and deny Ross owned the server at all. It didn't work, but going the other route wouldn't have either. I suspect a lot of the people who were pressing for Ross to challenge the seizure of the server are doing so because they're interested in the legal questions involved, rather than maximizing the chances of an innocence verdict. But in anycase, you generally can't get a re-trial based on incompetent counsel based just on strategic decisions, even if those decisions were poor ones. You need to show your lawyer was really asleep at the switch on a basic level, like giving the client factually wrong information, or going off to Cancun for a couple weeks instead of preparing a defence.

wickedlogic 12y ago

I'm looking forward to the day the http://nhlibertyforum.com/sessions/silk-road-how-the-government-won-the-case/ http://nhlibertyforum.com/sessions/silk-road-how-the-governm... video goes online. It was a very interesting presentation about the case.