
Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison - uptown
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/nyregion/ross-ulbricht-creator-of-silk-road-website-is-sentenced-to-life-in-prison.html
======
smhenderson
That seems way too harsh to me. I have strong opinions on the US War on Drugs
and it's failure to meaningful deal with drug use/abuse in the USA. And I feel
even worse about how it's spilling out into the rest of the world as we go
"global" with everything.

I can't say I know every detail of the case but I don't recall anyone getting
killed or even hurt by Mr. Ulbricht so in my mind the punishment does not fit
the crime. IMHO the death penalty should be off the table completely (go
Nebraska!) and life in prison reserved for only violent offenders. You can
argue that he enabled people to harm themselves but I think that's stretching
it. If people want to take drugs, even take too much drugs their going to get
it somewhere. If drugs were legal and treatment of abuse the focus instead of
punishment Silk Road wouldn't have existed in the first place.

~~~
drcode
You have to understand that the "murder for hire" evidence was introduced as
part of the trial (at which point Ross' lawyer could have disputed it, but
didn't) so it could be used as part of the sentencing decision... and that
kind of takes the luster off of the "non-violent crime" argument.

~~~
Cantremeber
Plus, it happened multiple times. Even if no one was actually killed the guy
still tried to have multiple people killed.

~~~
deweller
_allegedly_ tried to have multiple people killed.

The prosecution brought this up at trial but he was not charged or convicted
of this in the criminal trial.

~~~
zanny
This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison,
pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even
threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction -
but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked
away forever.

Go Team 'Murica....

~~~
tzs
Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone?

Even the most ardent proponent of full legalization usually acknowledges that
many drugs are very harmful--they just believe the people should be free to do
things even if they are harmful to themselves.

I generally support decriminalization or even legalization, but I would be
reluctant to allow internet sales. I'd require sales to be through licensed
dealers and in person, so that an addict cannot completely cut themselves off
from human contact. Internet sales make drugs too easy.

~~~
civilian
Licensed & regulated dealers (aka pharmacies) would be great.

In regards to the harm from drugs-- I'd add the obvious point that prohibition
comes with a really high cost.

I recently did dry-january and I was really happy with the results of cutting
back on my drinking. I wake up more rested, and had more energy in the
evenings. I've been thinking that going totally dry might be a good thing to
do in my life.

But would I make alcohol, one of the top killers in america, illegal? (ref:
[http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-
use.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm) ) Absolutely
not. If you went to US high school you know why--- alcohol-dealing gangs took
over. People turned to bad products (wood alcohol, that potentially included
methanol) to get their alcohol fix. I imagine we needlessly jailed a lot of
alcohol drinkers and pushers.

A more indepth analysis of alcohol prohibition:
[http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html](http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html)

Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much
different than alcohol prohibition??

~~~
jensen123
> Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much
> different than alcohol prohibition??

The average IQ of most western countries, including the US, is around 100.
That's probably significantly lower than the average reader here on Hacker
News. I'm not sure if a person with an IQ of 100 ever asks themselves
intelligent questions like yours...

~~~
rat87
May I reccomend
[http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/](http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/)
to you?

Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other
measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

~~~
tracker1
I was recently in a conversation where it was pointed out that my rather cold
analytic nature when it comes to these kinds of things puts me at odds with
more emotionally driven decisions. Even without agreeing, I can see the point.

That said, in my mind short of violent action, I find it hard to see how
having to serve more than two decades in prison is any kind of justice for any
kind of non-violent crime. I also find that seeing the U.S. prison population
at near 1% is rather depressing, and that most drugs probably shouldn't be
criminalized and their use are more representative of other social issues at
hand.

When black markets exist to the extent that the drug trade does, it usually
indicates that the law is probably wrong. A black market for anything will
always exist, but when you're starting to see it affect even 1% of the
population as it does in this case, that should indicate that legally, the
position should change in a way that reduces the need for such markets.
However, time and time again governments try to push in the other direction,
the U.S. revolution from England is in a large part based on this.

~~~
rorykoehler
There is no justice in this sentencing. The sentence is to set an example
(words of the judge) which by it's very definition is unjust. Regardless of
what you think of the laws relating to this case everyone deserves the same
treatment under the law.

------
jjcm
It's interesting. On one hand, if a leader of a traditional drug distribution
network landed a life in prison sentence, I wouldn't have thought twice about
it. With Silkroad though, I'm actually convinced by the defendants argument:
that it provided safer, more trustworthy drugs to users.

I've had friends who've died from purchasing bad drugs at raves from people
who were looking to make money and run. In one situation it ended up being rat
poison. The guy had other drugs in his system, and combined with the poison
his body went into shock. With darknet markets and independent lab testing
networks, this type of thing doesn't happen.

People are still going to use drugs. I'd rather law enforcement go after the
guys who are selling rat poison at raves than the guys who are setting up safe
distribution networks.

~~~
drcode
Though I agree with you about the "safer drugs" argument, Ross' site was the
worst possible thing that could happen to the supporters of safe, anonymous
marketplaces- The evidence that he was willing to use brutal mob-style
violence to support his business has yet to be disputed by anyone in a
credible way.

~~~
MichaelGG
His mistake was shitty opsec - he should not have allowed any third parties
into a position where they could extort him. However, after the fact, if
you're facing someone threatening to imprison and destroy the lives of many
vendors and patients, then what is the lesser evil? The extortionist choose to
attempt to endanger people. You can't use the state. What other ethical choice
is there?

I'm not saying this is the case for Ross, but it's a possibility, at least for
one of the contracts. Using violence to protect innocents is not something
bad. It's just unfortunate he created the situation in the first place -
instead of an extortionist, he may have confided in a LEO, thus hurting his
users. (Which is apparently what happened.)

Anyways, the big lesson is that when your startup has major security
requirements, go slow and don't break things. There's no real reason he
shouldn't be retired now, enjoying his life while enhancing others. Just
technical incompetence.

~~~
Touche
Can't the exact same argument be made by the mob or any other organized crime
that uses violence?

~~~
MichaelGG
Sorta. But one difference is that Silk Road wasn't out robbing or murdering
anyone. So there's no justification in extorting it or informing on it. Where
for a gang, an informant might be trying to overall save lives.

Another difference is scale. The extortionist that was after Ross was
threatening to leak data on hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Do gangs
usually find themselves in such situations?

If a gang is just selling drugs, not otherwise robbing or killing or hurting
others, then I'm not very troubled by them killing extortionists, no. I just
doubt that scenario makes up a notable portion of gang violence.

------
earlyresort
Hard drugs are one of those things that have different consequences for
different types of people.

An intelligent, wealthy, employable person can dabble with them, have a good
time, and _usually_ get away with it. Should they get addicted and screw up
their lives, they can usually get help and bounce back without permanent
consequences.

People who're a little less well-off intellectually and economically aren't so
resilient. Should they get addicted to hard drugs and screw up their lives,
they usually don't bounce back from it - their lives are ruined forever.

Since HN is full of intelligent, wealthy, employable people, the comments on
this thread don't surprise me a bit. And yes, I agree that drug policy in the
United States could stand to be reformed a little. But when evaluating the
harm a person's actions can cause to society, I wish people would think a
little more about not just themselves, but that vast chunk of society that's
not lucky enough to not be as privileged as we are.

~~~
hebdo
This kind of rationalizations may ruin your entire life one day. You cannot
and do not know where will any experimentation with drugs bring you to.

Remember that the first step of the twelve steps is "admitting that one
_cannot_ control one's alcoholism, addiction or compulsion". Finding reasons
why you are more privileged than others makes this step even harder.

~~~
ebspelman
I really appreciate this comment, even though I personally don't agree with
it.

You can't take drugs 100% safely, but their safety level does vary, and it
definitely varies with wealth.

Amphetamines, for example. Rich Americans get prescriptions for Adderall. Poor
Americans make meth. Or take opiates. Vicodin vs. heroin.

~~~
swombat
> _You can 't take drugs 100% safely_

I guess this depends on your definition of "100% safely", and probably also on
your definition of "drugs". Let's assume that "drugs" means "psychoactive
drugs". In that case, I'd suggest that you can take a cup of coffee pretty
much as close to 100% safely as is achievable for anything in the world that
you can ingest. And coffee is psychoactive. So, it is possible to take drugs
100% safely.

Even alcohol can be taken safely: so long as you keep the dose low, and you're
not someone with a special sensitivity to it (e.g. an alcoholic), you can have
a glass of red wine with pretty much zero chance of anything bad happening.

That also applies to all the other psychoactive drugs in between: speed,
cocaine, LSD, heroin, mushrooms, peyote, MDMA, whatever. They can all be taken
100% safely. The key in _all_ cases is always the same: good education and
moderation.

All of these drugs can also be abused. You can kill yourself with caffeine too
(though unlikely in coffee form - you'd need about 50-100 espresso shots). I
recall a story of someone who ate a whole pack of caffeinated candy, thinking
it was normal candy, and died.

Shit happens.

Shit happens more often without good research, education and clear guidelines.

Shit happens even more often without good research, education and clear
guidelines, and with dodgy suppliers who may or may not be selling you the
thing you think you're buying because they're all criminals.

The real culprit in every drug death? The three branches of the government,
who have failed to do the right thing on this topic for 50+ years now.

~~~
maxerickson
There's some kind of phrasing problem when you exclude a sensitive group of
people in order to state that something is 100% safe.

I think that"100% safe" is an exaggeration intended to emphasize that the risk
is manageable and it would be more polite to simply state that many substances
can be ingested with minimal risk.

------
gr8b8m8-88
So let's get this straight for the justice system:

1\. misleading the American public into going to a series of costly wars
through lies about WMDs -> not punishable

2\. Weakening Glass-Stegal and encouraging questionable and irresponsible
risk-taking at major banking institutions -> not punishable

3\. Fraudulent evaluation of risk-ratings by trusted agencies for the sake of
profit leading to worst financial disaster since great depression -> not
punishable, actually, rewarded with billions in bail-out by tax payers

4\. setting up and running a website to host underground drug trade with
bitcoins -> punishable by life-sentence

Not that what Ulbricht did was right or that he shouldn't be punished... but
his biggest problem was that his business didn't generate enough profit at the
expense of the public. Justice might be blind, but even she can still smell
money.

~~~
rhino369
1\. There is no evidence to support purposeful lying about WMDs. Bush admin
rushed the intelligence agency and relied on Yes Men to build their story. I'm
sure there was some law breaking going on but good luck identifying who what
and when.

2\. Glass Stegal wouldn't have prevented shit. In fact the combination banks
Glass Stegal would have prevented--BoA and Chase--were the banks who were
strong enough to absorb the shitty failed banks--merill and lehman--that were
often just investment banks.

Taking irresponsible risks isn't a crime either.

3) No evidence of fraud. These agencies trusted the financial models and those
models didn't work.

Fuckups aren't punished in our society the way intentional law breaking is.

Should be guillotine every founder whose company fails?

~~~
defen
Maybe a better example is the tobacco companies. They were convicted of a 50
year conspiracy to mislead the public about the health dangers of smoking, an
activity that has led to trillions of dollars in health care costs and the
deaths of literally millions of people in that span (in the US alone). No one
went to jail for this...the companies "just" had to pay a $200 billion dollar
fine (global annual tobacco sales revenue is estimated at $500 billion).

~~~
tedunangst
Lesson to be learned: ulbricht should have incorporated the Silk Road.

------
baddox
> Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk
> Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”

That's one of the most ridiculous claims I have seen in a while.

~~~
omgitstom
If it did, they should be able to prove it with some data. SR shut down in
2013, did they see a cliff of less ODs / deaths in hospitals?

But yea, I believe it is ridiculous as well, but the court needed to voice
their opinion with the sentence.

~~~
baddox
If you want data about damage to society, just look at basically any statistic
related to the war on drugs.

~~~
omgitstom
'what the government did in connection with the war on drugs was terribly
destructive to our social fabric'

------
PopsiclePete
Murderers get less than that. We are truly an interesting society, aren't we -
somehow kids doing LSD, a mostly harmless substance, is causing us more harm,
as a society, than, say, violence?

~~~
collinvandyck76
Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong.

> But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on
> a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money
> laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road.

[0]: [https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-
master...](https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-mastermind-
behind-silk-road-website-sentenced-to-life-in-
prison?utm_source=vicenewstwitter)

~~~
amyjess
No, he wasn't. He was never even charged with that; the story of one attempt
to hire a hitman was admitted into the trial as evidence that he was running
the Silk Road and knew what he was doing, but that was never one of the actual
charges against him.

~~~
tptacek
The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that
Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual
components of one of the charges he faced.

Ulbricht's argument to the effect that he wasn't properly charged with the
murder-for-hire scheme was addressed in detail by the court:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391926/gov-
uscourts-nysd-422824-142-0.pdf)

~~~
dragonwriter
> The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that
> Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual
> components of one of the charges he faced.

The prosecution memo does not rebut this argument, it rebuts instead the
clearly different but related argument that the murder-for-hire scheme was
_uncharged_ conduct which could therefore not be considered in sentencing. It
was -- as they correctly point out -- _charged_ , as it was one of the overt
acts specifically laid out in the Count One narcotics trafficking conspiracy
charge.

It is nevertheless inaccurate to say he was convicted of hiring a hitman,
since a conspiracy conviction requires (as far as overt acts go) only a
finding that the defendant committed at least one overt act in furtherance of
the conspiracy, there were several overt acts charged in that count, and the
verdict form did not direct the jury to return separate findings of fact on
each charged overt act.

~~~
tptacek
I'm certainly not saying he was convicted of hiring a hit man. He was
convicted of a conspiracy to traffic narcotics, one overt act of which was the
attempt to procure a murder for hire.

The argument I'm challenging is the notion that the factual claim of
Ulbricht's attempt to hire a hitman wasn't subjected to scrutiny during the
trial. It was a specifically introduced factual claim, which Ulbricht's
counsel was required to rebut.

------
vectorpush
The fact that he explicitly paid for the murder and torture of former
employees and their roommates is enough for me to feel like life in prison is
fair. Yes, an actual murder is a worse outcome than a murder-for-hire that
never materialized, but if you're a rich and sophisticated drug-kingpin
attempting to commission torture and murder to secure your criminal
enterprise, the punishment _should_ be the most severe. Murder is always a
heinous crime, but in my view, it is more heinous to direct an organization
that systematically orchestrates torture and murder for profit.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's also a case where I don't think the fact the hitmen were part of a sting
would vindicate him. I can understand the argument you were pressured into
buying drugs. But actually _paying money to have someone murdered_? That would
pass a moral barrier most people have. You can't use the fact it's a sting as
an opt-out there.

------
markbnj
The dual solicitations of murder put him well off the list of people I will
ever have any sympathy for. Having said that, he's 31 and reading "two life
sentences" and "no chance of parole," was a little bit of a shock. He didn't
actually kill anyone and I would guess some actual murderers have served less
time. I can't help but feel this is mostly meant as a warning to any other
smart guy who might think about setting up a black market.

~~~
themartorana
I'm very against making examples of people. Justice should be dealt entirely
equally. Punishing one person more harshly as a warning to hypothetical
criminals with a like mind is an unequal application of justice.

I didn't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short article
linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman deserve
life in prison.

I agree that "without parole" is ridiculous.

~~~
icebraining
_I didn 't know he had solicited murder (it's not mentioned in the short
article linked) so I was wondering what made a glorified drug dealer middleman
deserve life in prison._

But the thing is: he wasn't even convicted for that!

~~~
tptacek
He was convicted of the charge to which that allegation was formally attached.

~~~
icebraining
Yes, but he can still be convicted for that in Maryland, right? So massively
inflating this sentence due to the murder-for-hire allegations sounds like
potentially convicting him twice for the same crime.

------
mmanfrin
> and that at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on the site.
> The government recommended a sentence “substantially above” the 20-year
> minimum.

Man, that is a bit of a mental stretch to blame drug ODs on the runner of a
forum. He did not make the drugs, sell the drugs, or transfer the drugs, but
the prosecutors faulted him in the OD of people who used those drugs?

~~~
lfuller
I agree. By that logic, the directors of the country's top liquor producers
should get the death penalty.

~~~
gburt
Not to mention liquor stores, Walmart, Bayer AG, anyone who's ever
manufactured a gun or a knife, ...

------
rayiner
I think the sentence is obscene. I doubt my teachers growing up, who would
shriek "just say no!" at school assemblies, feel the same way. I imagine they
find the idea of little Johnny being able to buy meth over the Internet
terrifying. Guess who votes. It's like stoning people for adultery in the
Middle East. You have to really figure out why people consider drug use such
an existential threat to the community to figure out why they suoport such
harsh enforcement of these laws.

~~~
kevinskii
tptacek's comment [1] makes a convincing argument that Ross's attempts to hire
a hitman were a legitimate factor in his sentencing. If so, then a life
sentence seems quite fair based on what I've read.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627094)

------
contingencies
No surprises there. The libertarian defense is hard to hold once fat stashes
of cash and murder come in to play: the US certainly did a good and legally
questionable job on public character assassination prior to the sentencing!

That said, one can't help but wonder if perhaps the movement in which
characters as diverse as Assange, Dotcom, Snowden, ThePirateBay and Ulbricht
can be placed is too powerful to snub out with mere regulatory reactionism...
particularly given the economic state of much of the educated world and the
imminent environmental challenges we face as a planet.

If there's one thing that the study of complex systems teach us, it's that
there is strength in heterogeneity. Perhaps it's time for America to change
its tune and stop pressuring countries worldwide to overpolice their
populations in myriad ways (drugs, internet piracy, IP laws). May we live to
see more enlightened times, progressive approaches to state-sponsored social
remediation, and less of this nationalism "my way or the highway" / "with us
or against us" claptrap that Einstein so eloquently summarized: _Nationalism
is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind._

------
pakled_engineer
The guy who ran "The Farmer's Market" AKA Adam's Flowers who was pre Silk Road
and busted during Operation Adam Bomb was only given 10yrs for hustling
MDMA/Acid/weed, and ran an impressive smuggling operation where he had US
resellers pick up ocean freight shipments, and his plea has him serving time
in a Netherlands prison.

The difference is he didn't make his black market political, which
unfortunately Ross did. He also didn't try to kill anybody which although
thrown out was still referenced by the sentencing judge. Still no word on what
happened to the guy who was running SR 2.0 who worked for SpaceX and was
busted.

I remember people peddling drugs on MindVox forums when Lord Digital ran it
back in the day none of this is new except for Ulbricht trying to market his
biz as a revolution. Online drug sales will continue regardless of this
sentence.

~~~
tptacek
No part of the allegation that Ulbricht commissioned a murder appears to have
been "thrown out"; that accusation was a formal predicate (the second listed
"overt act") of the conspiracy charge for which he was convicted.

Can someone help me understand why people keep suggesting that this murder-
for-hire allegation was dropped? That does not at all seem to be the case.

~~~
shit_parade2
Why are you riding this belief so hard? It's like a one man fan group trying
desperately to make an untruth truth.

Was he convicted of this charge you speak of? No. And who really cares what
the legal system decides, it is an utter farce.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, he was convicted of the Narcotics Conspiracy count in which the murder-
for-hire scheme was one of the several charged over acts.

------
lesigh
Let's just ruin a mans life so maybe we'll deter %.0000001 of a billion dollar
drug industry. Why does the United States continue with this nonsense "War on
Drugs"? Could it have anything to do with the for profit prison system? Giant
militarized police force? Booming civil asset forfeiture?

For a country that prides itself on freedom and fairness, why create a system
that punishes for doing what they want with their body? What if we spent the
billions we do now on a failed drug war for education, addiction treatment,
mental health, job training? Why ban certain drugs and allow alcohol and
cigarettes that have just as addictive properties and kills just as many
people?

~~~
meaogj
SR sold drugs, yes. It also sold identity theft kits, credit card fraud kits,
hacking tools, and other gear that is meant to harm others through coercion.

Fuck Russ, and fuck you for repeating the lie that SR was nothing but drugs.

~~~
mikeash
And more importantly, the guy tried to have people killed.

This is not a good prompt for a "war on drugs is evil" rant. I sympathize with
the position, but using somebody as an example of supposed injustice, when a
big part of his punishment is because he hired hitmen (plural!), is not going
to make your point look at all good.

~~~
olefoo
"the guy tried to have people killed", allegedly.

And the alleging being done by someone who is himself in quite a bit of legal
trouble for stealing from Silk Road and embezzling bitcoin during the course
of his official duties.

~~~
mikeash
He was convicted for it so we don't need to say "allegedly" anymore.

------
farresito
“I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not
created Silk Road,” said the man, who was identified in court only as Richard.

Such an ignorant comment it doesn't even deserve to be commented.

~~~
zxyzzxxx
Jurors probably aren't experts in rhetoric so such statements have a huge
influence on them.

~~~
gwern
The jury wasn't involved; juries convict, judges sentence.

~~~
zxyzzxxx
I was assuming the sentence was spoken during the trial.

------
javert
Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Every single government actor involved in this case is far more guilty than
Ross and, frankly, they are the ones that deserve prison.

Yes, Ross should have realized you can't massively break the law and get away
with it. He made a big mistake.

But the mistake he made was assuming that other people were more benevolent
than they really are.

This young man viewed the world with a child-like, rosy-eyed perspective, and
for that, he gets crushed by the boot of government brutality.

Disclaimer: I have no involvement with any dark nets or online drug trade.

edit: I don't know if he hired hitmen and if he did, I suspect it was in his
own defense.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Gross miscarriage of justice. People have a right to buy drugs.

Legally, they do not. If you have a problem with that, take it up with
(relevant to the federal laws at issue here) the Congress.

~~~
murbard2
That's very unlikely to work, now what?

~~~
dragonwriter
> That's very unlikely to work, now what?

Try harder, like by working to convince the public that such a right should
exist, so that other people join you in your effort to convince Congress to
change the law.

~~~
murbard2
Also very unlikely to work unless you happen to be extremely talented at this
and spend your life doing it. And even then, it could take decades.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, radically changing everyone's idea about what rights should exist is
hard.

Of course, you haven't provided any argument _here_ for your position on
rights, just a bald statement that the right you would like to exist does, as
if that were some kind of uncontroversial, universally-accepted thing that
required no justification.

~~~
murbard2
And you've made a bald statement equivocating between the morality of legality
of something.

Would you like a list of examples where extremely illegal actions are clearly
and controversially moral, or can you think of historical examples yourself?

~~~
dragonwriter
> And you've made a bald statement equivocating between the morality of
> legality of something.

No, I haven't. "Equivocating" is, you know, pretty exactly the opposite of
"expressly disambiguating".

> Would you like a list of examples where extremely illegal actions are
> clearly and controversially moral

Presuming you mean "clearly and uncontroversially", no.

Though if you are arguing that "the right to buy drugs" is in that category,
I'd like to see an argument for that.

------
ratboy666
Jyoti Saran had 15,000 customers a week, made 200 million dollars, and was
filling 3,000 orders per day.

Sentence? 12 years.

Rick Ross _was_ sentences to life. For 100kg of cocaine. Sentence was reduced
to 20 years.

So, we will see what happens to Ulbricht.

My guess is that the life will stick, though. After all, this involved
computers.

~~~
wozniacki
A cursory Google search does not reveal much about this Jyoti Saran other than
the details of his indictment [1] and the auction of his Arlington mansion[2].

Is little else known about this figure, even as he is nearing completion of
his prison term?

[1]
[http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html](http://www.justice.gov/usao/txn/PressRel09/saran_sen_pr.html)

[2]
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487038592045755264...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703859204575526421570642784)

------
Andrenid
> The 31-year-old physics graduate and former boy scout was handed five
> sentences: one for 20 years, one for 15 years, one for five and two for
> life. All are to be served concurrently with no chance of parole.

Meanwhile:

> Hu Wanlin was in prison for human trafficking. That didn't stop him from
> opening a medical practice while jailed. Once he was released after a
> retrial in 1997, Hu treated hundreds of patients with an herbal remedy that
> actually contained sodium sulphate. 146 people died of his treatments. He
> was arrested in 1999 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for practicing
> medicine without a license.

146 people dead.. 15 years in prison.

Run a website that helps people connect with drug dealers.. multiple life
sentences.

~~~
giarc
You are comparing two completely different legal systems (US vs China) and you
are surprised there is a difference?

------
iblaine
Life without parole seems excessive. I think they're trying to make an example
out of him due to how hard it is to detect and prosecute this type of crime.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
It's life, not life without parole. He'll get paroled, eventually.

People should read some of the background, including haggling over the cost of
a murder for hire. - [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-
road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/)

Truth is, it's hard to run this sort of thing without getting ripped off, and
then violence is the only way to discourage people from ripping you off. Watch
Godfather movies, esp. part 2... Mafias arise out of human nature and the
nature of the game.

One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are
considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when
taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

~~~
dreamdu5t
> One of the many ironies of libertarian extremists is that actions which are
> considered illegitimate when taken by a democratic government become OK when
> taken by concentrated private power to protect private property.

Huh? Libertarian extremists do not condone murder or murder-for-hire. Most
libertarian extremists also support proportional self-defense and damages
doctrine (Rothbard et al) so would not consider murdering someone who steals
from you acceptable.

~~~
etherael
They might consider killing someone who has threatened to reveal information
to a brigade of killers that will kidnap and imprison, or outright kill people
who have trusted and relied upon them to protect those people from such
actions as at the very least worthy of consideration.

That was the situation here; party A attempts to blackmail party B with
revealing the identities of group C to entity D which will then ruin the lives
of all people within group C. Is it _definitely_ right or wrong to hire
somebody to kill party A? What duty of care does party B owe group C? Entity D
exists and is not going away and will continue to behave in the fashion which
party A relies upon as the stick in the equation. Attacking entity D directly
is suicidal and ineffective.

If party A was directly threatening to kidnap and imprison or murder all the
people in group C, I think aggressive action against them would be much less
questionable, and effectively that _is_ what they are actually doing, given
the behaviour of entity D.

Putting all those pieces in place already, what is the appropriate response
supposed to actually be?

Any way you look at it, it's certainly an interesting situation that people
who otherwise would think there was no problem here must take into account.
It's all well and good to believe the state is a gang of thieves and murderers
writ large (disclaimer; I certainly do), and go about constructing a parallel
strategy to circumvent them, but that strategy can't just _ignore_ them, or
the consequences of their existence, either.

------
iaw
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, the kid rolled the dice
in a high stakes game and was fully penalized. On the other hand, the logical
basis behind the prohibition of illicit substances seems flawed.

I wonder how things would have turned out without the murder for hire angle.

------
kiba
The cost of imprisoning someone as of 2010: 31,000 USD per years.[1]

Ross is 31 years old, so he may live for 40 years. That mean imprisoning this
man will cost the US taxpayer 1.4 million USD in lifetime cost.

This doesn't take into account opportunity cost, expenses for trial, the cost
of the drug war, and so on.

[1] [http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-
justice/2...](http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/inside-criminal-
justice/2012-02-the-high-cost-of-prisons-using-scarce-resources-wise)

~~~
wmf
The government seized Bitcoin worth many millions from him, so they're still
ahead.

~~~
Tinyyy
Which came from the people anyways…?

------
serve_yay
> But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm
> reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out
> a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business
> dealing drugs in the first place.”

Lovely.

~~~
Nadya
Mistaking some delusional world of zero crime doesn't do any good for people
living in reality. That 'moral dealer' who hands out clean needles would be
doing good. I guess the moral high-ground is ignoring the number of users who
die or contract diseases from dirty needles? That's a pretty fucked
perspective.

I see an issue with treating drug users (esp. recreational drug users) as
somehow "less than human" because of their choices. If a heroin user dies or
contracts disease from using a dirty needle, that is a sad thing and I would
applaud a dealer who hands out clean needles to his clients to prevent it.
Regardless of my stance on drugs and drug users.

~~~
serve_yay
Yes exactly, the reasoning proceeds from this silly world of "shoulds" which
does not actually exist. In the actually-existing world, people buy drugs, and
so there is value in addressing that demand as safely as possible. Instead we
have cynical people like these, talking about how the _real_ right thing is to
just not sell drugs at all.

(And that's not even getting into the issue of whether we should be allowed to
have drugs as supposedly free people)

~~~
Nadya
I originally read the parent quote in a non-sarcastic tone and thought you
were supportive of their line of reasoning.

(Libertarians say hi.)

------
startupfounder
Black markets exist because demand exists, whether we like it or not, whether
we think it's good or bad. Black markets are self regulated and that is why
you see so much violence in the illegal drug market. Restricting supply drives
up prices and profit and increases incentives to increase supply. This is a
vicious never ending cycle.

Ross was tempted by helping to increase supply. Maybe if we had a legal and
regulated location where you could do any drugs but under the supervision of
counselors we could help reduce demand and end the cycle.

I believe a church in the Netherlands did this in their basement. They
provided discounted heroin that could only be used there and addicts reduced
their consumption and had access to counselors.

I am not supporting what Ross did to give access to illegal drugs, I just
believe because there is such demand trying to reduce supply is a losing
battle where only law enforcement equipment supply companies win.

~~~
zanny
You don't really have to just believe. It isn't even the fifty years of
historical evidence on the contrary in the US, it is how almost every nation
south of the US boarder in our hemisphere has been systemically destroyed
trying to supply all of the black market US drug needs.

------
cryoshon
FTA: "Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with
Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”"

Can't help but counter this claim by stating that buying drugs via Silk Road
is probably not very destructive in any sane analysis, especially compared to
street level drug dealing.

There's no corners to hold, no rivals to fight with territory over, no deals
to go bad, no real access by minors, and no real impedance to the function of
any tangible physical location or bystander.

~~~
soup10
Edit: I didn't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but
i'm going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end

Seriously. The way he invokes the words "our social fabric" makes it out like
Forrest was personally affected. It's easy to imagine Urlbricht rehabilitating
and becoming a productive member of society but instead his life has just been
destroyed. It's not justice and it's not the right thing to do.

If one person decides to put another person in a cage for the rest of their
life, it's clearly a horrendous stomach turning crime. It's no less horrendous
when the justice system does it. But we've decided that it's a necessary evil
that society requires. We should be working as a society to minimize the
necessary evil and rehabilitate people but we're not and it's a tragedy.

~~~
ubernostrum
_I didn 't know he ordered ordered 5 hits before writing this post, but i'm
going to leave it up. I guess he got desperate and crazy towards the end_

Just to throw out an observation: the idea that being in this business kicked
off a spiral of actions which led to him being "crazy and desperate" to the
point of trying to have people killed is _precisely_ the argument that's been
made by people who support the drug war, about the slippery slope of
consequences that follow from getting involved with drugs.

I am not sure why someone who so perfectly embodies the other side's narrative
is being held up as a shining heroic example by supporters of legalization.

------
redwood
His trailblazing has parallels to Sean Parker.

Of course, liberating music was hardly as valuable to society as removing the
need for bloodbaths to distribute drugs. But what are you going to do.

~~~
Touche
He didn't quite remove that need according to prosecution evidence.

------
r0naa
I think that this is completely disproportionate. He is being treated as if he
was a serial killer or a mob-boss. Hell, even Al Capone was only sentenced to
11 years in Prison.

~~~
eropple
Capone was sentenced to eleven years for tax evasion, not more serious
criminal offenses.

~~~
bediger4000
Right, but everyone knew that he'd had people whacked, and maybe even done
some whacking himself.

Just like the not-very-explicit "murder for hire" used to justify the
astonishing sentence given Ulbricht.

------
vvpan
"What you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our
social fabric".

That sounds like something from the 19th century.

------
fysac
This has nothing to do with what he did. They're making an example of him.

------
placeybordeaux
It looks like the lessons here are

1) Be careful how your promote your criminal enterprise (early bitcoin talk
pages about silk road are from Ross)

2) Don't commit a crime to cover up a lesser crime (Covering up running silk
road by trying to commit murder by hire)

3) regularaly check the IP of your service that is running a TOR site.
Requests sent to that IP should have been blocked.

~~~
rhino369
The real lesson should be don't serious commit crimes. I don't know any
organization that has never had a security fuck up.

~~~
bediger4000
_The real lesson should be don 't serious commit crimes._

The whole of morality is not contained by the law. How about those folks who
broke apartheid law by going to the University of Alabama? I stipulate that
operational security is not exactly part of breaking apartheid laws, but
still...

Copyright laws are going way way overboard. How about breaking those laws in
order to expose corruption? That could happen, easily. "Don't commit serious
crimes" is advice for the conformist.

~~~
rhino369
Well now he is going to conform his ass to federal prison for his entire life.

Going to UofA during segregation wasn't a serious crime.

As a practical matter, civil disobedience is most effective when you aren't
committing serious crimes.

Throwing a rock through a window to support coffee farmers in Guatemala is one
thing. Bombing a logging operation is quite another.

Even if you think you are being moral, it's really stupid to commit serious
crimes.

------
j1vms
Sentencing, based solely on creating/running the site, has more to do with the
difficulty of finding, investigating and prosecuting these cases and therefore
the value of harsh sentencing as a deterent to other current or would be
offenders.

Effect might perhaps be to drive others who are or want to do this stuff to
operate from Russia or other harder to reach places. It might have been wiser
to keep him operating and under long term surveillance, and as such indirectly
control the beast he created.

------
hardwaresofton
What are the other sentences people have received for attempted murder/ hiring
a hitman?

People seem to be hinging their "this is a relatively fair judgement" opinions
on the fact that he attempted to/hired one or more hitmen for one or more
hits...

If that's what they're prosecuting on, then there's precedent, right? Is that
precedent life in prison?

While I don't agree/defend what Ulrich was doing, I think the sentence is
heavy-handed. I think arguments can be made for life in prison being worse (or
more cruel) than death. And if we compare his crimes to some of the things
governments do (or allegedly do) behind closed doors, I wonder if this is
really "justice".

I don't know if there's much merit to him "more safely distributing drugs",
but I wonder if a sentence this heavy would have been issued elsewhere outside
the US.

[EDIT] - Reading other posts, it seems like he wasn't actually
charged/convicted for the attempted murder/hitman stuff. If that wasn't the
case, then I disagree with the verdict that much more

[EDIT2] - People who are under the impressions that Snowden should have stayed
in the US to face proper sentencing should also note the sentencing in this
case. Circumstances are different, but, I'm pretty sure Snowden could have
faced worse, since Treason is pretty high up there (and makes you eligible for
the death penalty). Ironic given that we (american culture) iconize Nathan
Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give...")

------
TazeTSchnitzel
In a tragic miscarriage of justice, a man who made bucketloads of money from
exploiting drug addiction and who hired hitmen, is sentenced. This innocent
liar, drug dealer and moblord has been incorrectly sentenced for life. Free
Ross Ulbricht, he never did anything wrong, except for all that stuff he did
do.

Ross Ulbricht, who is tragically falsely accused of running Silk Road, is a
hero for challenging the War on Drugs by definitely not selling drugs, and a
nice guy.

------
paulpauper
If there is any justice, maybe he'll get a pardon in 20-30 years for good
behavior.

 _The government said they identified six individuals who overdosed and died
of drugs they purchased on Silk Road. The parents of two of those
individuals—25-year-old Bryan B. from Boston and 16-year-old Preston B. from
Perth, Australia—spoke at Friday’s sentencing, pleading emotionally to the
judge to give Mr. Ulbricht a harsh sentence._

More people die of prescription and OTC drugs.

------
logfromblammo
So he gets life for starting and operating a shady business that was "terribly
destructive to our social fabric" and "lowered the barriers to obtaining
illegal [goods and services]".

Great. Now that we have a solid benchmark for the minimum level of criminality
possible to get a lifetime imprisonment sentence, we can finally start
prosecuting those responsible for the financial fraud that caused the last
recession. It was pretty destructive to our social fabric. There was a lot of
bar-lowering going on, too.

Right?

Hello?

Anyone?

[ _mic goes dead, and house lights shut off_ ]

I guess I'll just go home, then.

In light of the differential between the outcomes of prosecutions of highly
publicized crimes, I think perhaps he was convicted for " _failing to pay the
minimum campaign contributions tax and lobbying tax on filthy lucre_ " and
also got the mandatory minimum sentence for " _we need to make a really big
example of this guy because we are totally unprepared to handle anyone smarter
and more cautious than him_ ", with just a little shot of " _X on the Internet
is a thousand times worse than X in person_ ".

------
LulzSect
Because real, actual murder isn't a serious enough crime for Life in Prison.

~~~
steego
It's his fault for getting into the wrong business. If he only laundered drug
cartel money like HSBC, he would have just paid a fine.

~~~
vvpan
HSBC? You mean Wachovia? Or HSBC is at it too?

~~~
Squarel
HSBC were deep into it

[http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-
la...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-laundering/)

------
brotoss
Fuck the war on drugs

~~~
brandon272
It saddens me that acknowledging the war on drugs as being corrosive and
detrimental is seen as extreme by mainstream modern society. Few seem to
question extreme punishments for crimes related to the manufacture or
distribution of drugs.

~~~
Retra
It's not that extreme of an opinion. What is extreme is thinking the Ross
Ulbricht is somehow a champion against the war on drugs, or that his
conviction should be considered as representative of a pattern.

Either way, people don't question these punishments because they don't fear
them. And the don't fear them because they don't aspire to be drug lords or
murderers.

------
pnut
Other figures running drug distribution operations at this scale stay
physically outside the US and build up paramilitary defense/enforcement. They
either face an identical fate to Ross or meet a violent end.

This is not a surprising outcome in any way, and his use of the Internet
rather than traditional methods absolves him of nothing.

------
nemmonszz
I knew Ross for a few years in college. I find it almost inconceivable to
believe that he tried to have people killed. I also find the sentence
completely disproportionate to the 7 charges he was tried and convicted of.
This is a sad day.

edit: I also understand the point that his hiring the hitman was an overt act
under one of the other charges, but, speaking as someone who is not a lawyer,
it seems to me that such a weighty punishment should have to be based on a
much more explicit charge than this. I sincerely doubt that they would have
been able to make the case for life in prison if not for the murder-for-hire
angle, and as such i think it should have been charged. This seems like a
dishonest and sneaky way to prosecute someone. Of course, i have my biases.

------
TwiztidK
This isn't really surprising. I think most "drug kingpins" would be able to
get much shorter sentences by agreeing to turn in a bunch of smaller dealers.
It seems like Ross' work was pretty solitary, so that wasn't really an option
for him.

------
michaelby
Everyone seems to be looking at this as some sort of travesty of justice.
However, there is significant evidence that he tried to order hits on people.
While there's no (public) evidence that he successfully murdered anyone, he
clearly had lost his regard for human life.

We're in a day and age where people can cause tremendous harm to others using
their mind alone, without throwing a punch or pulling a trigger. Just because
he didn't personally cause physical harm to people doesn't mean he can't cause
it to happen!

I think it's important for society to be protected from people with his
mindset.

~~~
imh
From other comments, it seems he wasn't tried for that stuff though. I don't
think it's a good thing to include considerations in sentencing that he wasn't
tried for. If there's evidence he did that, and you want to put him away for a
long time because of it, then try him for it!

Punishing him for that without trying him for it seems like punishment without
trial, which is bad. The alternative is that this punishment is just for
nonviolent stuff, for which it seems excessive.

------
codecamper
I'd say it's an unfair sentence, given that with bitcoin & a decentralized
approach, it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be
stoppable by any centralized government. They stopped & sued Napster. Did it
stop file sharing? I think the government misplayed their cards -- again.
Better to have partnered with Ulbricht -- and had a part in creating whatever
future version of the market would be. Better to get some market share in
whatever comes next -- then make some big busts that way.

~~~
zf00002
>it is unlikely that future versions of this sort of thing will be stoppable
by any centralized government

Silk road 2 has already been busted.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
What about Abraxas, BlackBank, Agora, KISS, Outlaw, East India Company,
Babylon, Oxygen, The Real Deal, Bloomsfield, and The Crypto Market?

~~~
zf00002
I don't know. But hinging the argument on bitcoin and decentralization seems
short-sighted and letting yourself fall into the same traps as the guys who
have been busted.

~~~
codecamper
Well I have no idea what will be the ultimate version of this, but like all
ideas, it will probably continue to evolve and improve itself. software is
just codified ideas you know.

------
yarou
As I stated much earlier (I believe it was during pre-trial), Ulbricht was
convicted in the court of public opinion, even before he went to trial.

Some may hail this sentence as a victory for justice or some similar nonsense,
but there is a deeper problem here. Civil liberties continue to be eroded at
an extremely alarming rate in this country that the concept of "justice"
applies in a very political context. It's pretty much a joke.

The message here is that if you attempt to live outside of this current
system, you will be punished.

------
6d0debc071
> Judge Forrest told Mr. Urlbricht that “what you did in connection with Silk
> Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.”

Certainly his actions were destructive to a social fabric, or elements
thereof. However, I don't think that anyone of good sense takes too seriously
the nightmarish visions of a total collapse of order that Forrest's words
summon to mind if the site had been left to run. The alternatives do not
reduce to the current structure of a fabric and no fabric at all.

Nor does the charge itself make any particular sense, at least in terms of
ideals to hold to. Progress is always built on the destruction, partial or
total, of a previous way of life. Thus, when destruction becomes impossible,
the liabilities that history places upon us, both in terms of mistakes and in
terms of functions which no longer match the demands of life, come to dominate
all attempts to adapt society to a more fitting form.

The sentence is, at least on those grounds, a farce. Some social fabrics
should be destroyed - that something _better_ may take their place. I'm not
going to advocate either way on whether that's the case here, but to imprison
someone simply because they perform an act with such a function is to reduce
yourself to a tyrant.

------
whoopdedo
Have any of the carding forum operators been sentenced to life in prison? Or
any prison time? Or even been arrested?

I say this as someone who just found out he's had $500 stolen from him. Of
course I half blame the banks and credit card processors who allow card
numbers to be passed around so easily.

------
arbuge
As an aside, since this is HN, I thought some portion of the audience here
might be interested to know that the code for the Silk Road marketplace
appears to have been in PHP, using CodeIgniter as the framework:

[http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-
journal-...](http://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-
laptop-ross-ulbricht/)

"In any case, I decided to rewrite the site in an mvc framework as suggested
by my benevolent hacker adviser. So, while still manually processing
transactions and responding to a bigger and bigger message load, I learned to
use codeigniter and began rewriting the site."

------
JanSolo
Perhaps if he had made even a token effort to not permit illegal sales on
SilkRoad he'd be hailed as the new Jeff Bezos. Instead, he'll be denounced as
a drug peddling fraudster. A shame; I thought his ideas had merit.

~~~
murbard2
No, he'd have been a shitty competitor to eBay no one would have ever heard
of. Illegality is/was the whole point.

------
neuro_imager
Like many commentators here, I am tremendously opposed to the prohibitionist
approach to law-enforcement of any sort.

One of the greatest tragedies of prohibition (and there are a multitude), is
that it transfers so much money and other resources into the hands of existing
criminal organisations. It also creates criminals as these profits incentivise
illicit trade and legislates users as criminals.

That being said, what Ulbricht was doing was clearly nefarious and the
punishment should come as no surprise.

------
facepalm
For what charges exactly - did they sentence him for murder or planned murder
now? Or just for distributing narcotics? It seems rather weird.

~~~
amyjess
Here's a list I found:

Narcotics trafficking, distribution of narcotics by means of the Internet, and
conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identification documents, participation in
narcotics trafficking conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, computer
hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.

Source: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged-
si...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/08/25/alleged-silk-road-
creator-ross-ulbricht-hit-with-three-new-drug-and-identity-fraud-charges/)

------
beatpanda
Ross Ulbricht did more to civilize the drug trade, to prevent the violence and
mayhem associated with dealing drugs, than any law.enforcement agency anywhere
in the world ever has, and I can't wait for the day we finally abolish prisons
and acknowledge this tragedy.

------
JanSolo
On the surface the sentence seems a bit steep doesn't it? I expect it's
because he attempted to have at least two people killed. I don't think either
case succeeded but there was clearly intent to murder.

------
haberman
I don't know enough about this story to have an overall opinion, but this
particular exchange made me angry:

> His lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, in submissions to the judge, argued that the
> website’s “harm reduction” ethos made it safer than traditional drug dealing
> on the street.

> But prosecutors, in their memo, argued that praising Silk Road for “harm
> reduction measures” was “akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out
> a clean needle with every dime bag: The point is that he has no business
> dealing drugs in the first place.”

When one side of the argument is based in real-world impacts, and the other
side has nothing but an appeal to existing rules, it's a pretty good
indication that the rules need changing.

It's an infuriating power play to say "you had no business doing that" if you
can't come up with a good reason why not.

~~~
anigbrowl
Bear in mind that prosecutors have a professional duty to zealously argue the
government's case just as the defense lawyers have a duty to zealously argue
for innocence or lenity of their clients. Unfortunately judges no longer have
that much discretion to weigh the competing arguments because of the mandatory
sentencing guidelines Congress came up with. It has since been established by
the Supreme Court that the guidelines are just guidelines rather than being
binding, but sadly any judge that says 'these guidelines are crap, I've
considered them and now I'm going to ignore them' is committing career suicide
unless the high sentence would be so bizarre as to truly shock the conscience.

And the American legal conscience unfortunately has a very high shock
threshold these days, as does the population in general. I mean, look at how
many people cheerfully support torture despite the massive intellectual and
ethical pitfalls involved. Many of those people are also indifferent to the
Constitutional basis of the judicial branch and start foaming at the mouth any
time a court says a piece of legislation is unconstitutional.

~~~
haberman
My understanding is that this entire discussion is in the context of
sentencing, and that the defense's argument here is in that context.

If the defense had made the harm reduction argument in the context of the
guilty/not-guilty question, that would be one thing. But in the sentencing
phase, it seems appropriate to take into account the actual harm of the crimes
involved.

When the prosecution's answer to this discussion of harm is "it doesn't
matter, it was illegal," that's when I get cranky.

~~~
logfromblammo
_Lex talionis_ has been a part of human legal tradition for at least 3700
years. The retaliatory penalty shall be equal or lesser than the harm caused
by the crime.

This is a big problem with victimless crimes and offenses against the public
welfare. The extent of actual harm to actual people cannot be easily measured,
so there is no rational limit upon punishments levied against the offenders.

Evidence that a criminal intentionally acted in such a way as to reduce the
potential harms wrought by his crimes is _VERY_ relevant to sentencing, in my
opinion. The same holds true for malice and negligence.

For instance, if you sell heroin, that's illegal. If you refused to sell
heroin to people younger than 18, and also embargoed and beat the excrement
out of anyone you discovered to be passing heroin on to minors, that would
still be pretty awful. But it would also show that you were making some
attempt to be less awful than you could be. If, perhaps, you kidnapped any
customer who lost his job, and forced him to dry out and clean up in your own
private rehab, that would still be pretty nasty. But it would also show a
commitment to reduction of harm. You should probably get a below-median
sentence, as punishments for drug kingpins go.

Contrariwise, if you keep your drug stash and your loaded shotgun in your
baby's crib, then screw you, buddy; you're getting the maximum on all counts.

------
nthcolumn
Nice show trial. The US justice system is a joke. Cops regularly murder
unarmed citizens - nothing. The 'evidence' used to convict Mr Ulbricht should
have been inadmissable as it was obtained illegally.

------
rdl
So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years. Does
he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides not to
separately prosecute the other crimes?

~~~
dragonwriter
> So what confuses me now is what happens if prohibition ends in ~20 years.
> Does he have any hope of re-evaluation then, assuming the Government decides
> not to separately prosecute the other crimes?

An act becoming legal after one has been sentenced for it generally has no
effect on past sentences. Executive actions like pardon are possible, but are
not in any way necessarily impacted by changes in the legality of the act for
which one was convicted. (Though, the same changes in the political landscape
which produce changes to the law may influence the politics of discretionary
executive actions like pardons.)

------
elwell
Creating a platform that can be used to buy/sell illegal goods shouldn't be
against the law IMO. Are car manufacturers thrown in jail when someone drives
their product when drunk?

~~~
omegaham
No, because the vast majority of people driving are obeying the law (or at
least are committing very minor crimes). In contrast, the vast majority of
people on Silk Road were buying and selling illegal goods.

It boils down to intent. If you intend to make a legitimate platform for
commerce that _also happens to be used_ for illegal stuff, (Craigslist, for
example) you're in the clear as long as you aren't actively aiding them.

In contrast, if you set up your platform with the explicit intention of
selling illegal goods, then you're in trouble.

------
sudioStudio64
The thing that you need to take from this is the state re-asserting its
primacy in the face of an incredibly disruptive* technology. I think that even
if Ulbricht hadn't attempted to have people murdered the penalty would have
been extreme. When challenged bureaucracy over compensates...through that lens
the governments actions in several areas is explainable if not just.

* I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

~~~
icelancer
> I'm sorry for using the word "disruptive".

I have the same amount of guilt you do when I use that word. But in this case
I think it was probably the best word. Annoying when normal words get
reclassed into buzzwords.

------
kevinwang
This sentence seems pretty disproportionate to the crime. Pretty fucked up at
a human level too.

------
wclax04
Wouldn't the USPS/FedEx/UPS also be liable as a drug courrier?

~~~
srdev
No. Intent and context matters. USPS/FedEx/UPS are businesses that primarily
perform legal services, and follow US laws when its discovered that they were
used for illicit purposes. On the other hand, Silk Road was built from the
bottom up as a black market to service illegal goods. The idea that they just
provided an anonymous marketplace and that unfortunately had illegal stuff
happen on it is transparent lie that ignores the work Ross and his team put
into promoting it as a drug marketplace.

Context and intent are important and laws aren't computer programs.

------
ddxv
This has made me feel so incredibly sad. Came to HN just to read the comments,
I feel so much for him, I wish I could help him.

I hope we can change the way our society punishes it's members.

------
knieveltech
"We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and
therefore we have no cause for complaint..." \- Robert Falcon Scott

~~~
uptownJimmy
Perfect.

------
eternalban
He is a political prisoner.

------
caseysoftware
I think it's great that his LinkedIn page is still online.

~~~
jmkni
So it is! You would think the first thing he would have done given access to
the internet would be to take it down.

Kind of suggests he hasn't even been online since the day he was arrested,
crazy!

------
AC__
This is insanity! Life imprisonment for starting a website?!? Where are the
"kingpin" charges for these guys
[http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...](http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13889)

------
shit_parade2
Total circus.

Torture people for the government and you dont even get a warning.

How do people continue believe they live in a society governed by law? It
governed by naked, corrupt power.

------
FlaceBook
After reading comments here and on arstechnica, I'm terrified by the number of
people who still seem to blindly trust our government and support the drug
war.

Another scary thing is how many people have "convicted" this guy of things
that he was never convicted of, and used those things as a point from which to
justify his sentence here.

------
ygmelnikova
The silent majority agrees with this sentence.

~~~
mikeash
Why would anyone _disagree_ with this sentence, unless someone thinks having
people killed is a normal part of business?

~~~
valar_m
Because that's not what he was charged with?

~~~
mikeash
Yes, it was.

~~~
valar_m
No, it was not.

~~~
mikeash
Yes, it was:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9627200)

Or if you want to go straight to the source, see item 10b on page 5 of:
[http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-
sdny/legacy/...](http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-
sdny/legacy/2015/03/25/US%20v.%20Ross%20Ulbricht%20Indictment.pdf)

As far as I can tell, the only reason people are saying he wasn't convicted of
murder for hire is because the top-level charge is "conspiracy" or somesuch,
with "murder for hire" as one of the specific conspiracy items, and they
haven't dug down.

------
Hydraulix989
Let's not forget that this guy got the same sentence as the Boston Marathon
bomber.

~~~
tdicola
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to the death penatly. Ross Ulbricht was
sentenced to life in prison.

------
currentoor
_I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not
created Silk Road_

Wrong, you're son would be here if you were a better parent.

~~~
ars
You don't know that.

For some kids better parents mean better behavior. But some kids will act
badly no matter what their parents do.

It sucks to say this, but some people just have bad genes, and there is
nothing someone outside can do to help.

~~~
currentoor
Well then it's just natural selection. Unless his son managed to reproduce
already... Then it's just a horrible cycle of pain and blame.

------
amyjess
My condolences go to the mutual friends Ross and I share.

Honestly, I don't have much sympathy for him directly (due to his complete and
utter stupidity and lack of opsec), but I know this is going to hurt some
people I care about, people who were good friends with Ross back in college,
and I feel bad for _them_.

~~~
hndude
The amount of ego in this comment is astounding

------
sarciszewski
Sad to see him get life, but I'm going to withhold my opinions beyond that
statement because I know the feds will read this one day. Fuckers.

------
kidgorgeous
I wonder why people assume Ulbricht tried to have someone killed? History has
proven time and time again that police and prosecutors will fabricate
information to get a conviction or even get bail removed. I wouldn't put it
past the prosecution and DEA to stoop to such low-handed tactics.

~~~
emodendroket
The best information available suggests that he actively solicited hitmen.
Yes, I suppose if you take the position that "absolutely anything
incriminating is fabricated" then you could claim he didn't.

------
codecamper
Amazing. Write software, make billions. Write some other software, get life in
prison.

~~~
knodi123
Incredible. Fire a gun at a deer, get meat. Fire a gun at a baby, get life in
prison.

Intransigent. Set a log on fire, keep warm. Set a house on fire, get convicted
of insurance fraud and arson.

~~~
codecamper
I was just thinking what it may have been like from his perspective. To him,
it was the same set of actions as was required to start something like AirBnb
or some such. You write software. You get your initial users, etc. You get
feedback & you loop.

With the same set of actions & work, pointing in a different direction, he
could have done quite well for himself working on another idea.

I'm guessing his biggest downfall really was in having an aversion to working
with others. He could work with others at a startup and make some great stuff
& quite possibly do well. Instead, he chose a more sure fire approach to
making money on his own -- with the morality and legality of what he was doing
as the cost.

------
RivieraKid
Wow, that's almost unbelievable and very sad. I mean, it's questionable
whether he caused any actual harm.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hiring a hitman?

~~~
tghw
That's just a rumor until he's convicted of it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
He hired an undercover cop. How guilty does he have to be?

~~~
tghw
He wasn't convicted, so in the eyes of the law he is still innocent.

------
geetee
You could make an argument that the alleged murder for hire attempts were
simply self defense. The consequence of being exposed is life in prison, and I
don't think any of us can say with certainty how far we'd go to avoid life in
prison. It's not like he was trying to have innocent bystanders murdered. If
selling drugs was not a crime, there would be no opportunity for blackmail,
and nobody to silence.

~~~
geetee
I knew it wouldn't be a popular angle, but maybe some counterpoints along with
those down votes please?

~~~
Natsu
You don't get to claim self-defense when your own illegal actions led to the
situation. Nor when there isn't an immediate threat to injure you and
threatening to expose your illegal actions just isn't going to cut it.

You can find further details here:
[http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=864)

It's written by an actual lawyer, in spite of being in comic format.

~~~
geetee
I didn't mean to imply that it could be considered self-defense according to
the letter of the law. Just floating the scenario where you're running a
business that, while illegal, is not morally wrong, and you're faced with the
possibility of spending the rest of your life behind bars. What do you do?

~~~
Natsu
They would tell you not to run that business because it's illegal. There are
legitimate ways to protest a bad law and running an illegal business isn't one
of them.

~~~
mdpopescu
Let's put it in other terms.

You run a business in the 1800s that frees blacks from the South and
transports them to the North. If caught, you risk some severe penalties, maybe
even death.

Someone finds out and blackmails you. What do you do?

~~~
Natsu
I think it might be better understood if I said 'legal' instead of
'legitimate'. The law, by its nature, cannot excuse breaking the law.

EDIT: Also, in your example, this was eventually fixed by changing the law,
not by breaking it. And, to the best of my knowledge, everyone ran the
underground railroad for free, not for profit.

