
Free Ross Ulbricht - sgt
https://freeross.org
======
blake1
His sentence seems fair according to the standards of the US justice system,
at least from my non-lawyer’s perspective. He profited enormously from drug
trafficking, and received a sentence in line with other convicted cartel
leaders. Is this site advocating for freeing all such similar cartel leaders?
If not, why not?

And yes, he was not convicted of the solicitation for murder, but in the US
justice system considering this secondary behavior is perfectly legal. I don’t
even think it’s all that uncommon or unethical. It’s just the more converse of
giving someone a lighter sentence for an otherwise unblemished life.

~~~
sktrdie
That seems a bit harsh given that he wasn't directly involved in the
trafficking. Was he a facilitator? Sure, but most drug trafficking is
facilitated through systems that are considered legal: post office, google
searches, emails, medicine labs, etc. Yet, why is the moderator of a platform
the one who has to pay the biggest price?

So considering that, yes, his punishment far exceeds his involvement in the
illegal activity. The punishment should've been shared by the dozen, if not
hundreds, of other parties/groups/dynamics involved. History has proved that
killing the platform doesn't fix the problem.

~~~
gtirloni
In other words, isn't a knowingly facilitator directly involved in the illegal
activity he's facilitating?

This discussion is clouded because it's was an online platform and it was
pretending to be a beacon of user privacy and civil liberties (which it was
not).

Imagine a situation where you're renting rooms in your house for criminals to
conduct crimes (and that's your main selling point, nobody is pretending
you're renting those rooms because you want simply to help people), would we
be discussing whether you deserve a harsh sentence or not? I don't think so.

The difference between the Silk Road website and Google/Postal Office is that
they take reasonable measures against illegal activity on their platform when
they are informed of that.

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gtirloni
_Silk Road was an online marketplace with an emphasis on user privacy_

That's a bit disingenuous.

~~~
VikingCoder
Care to explain? That sounds correct to me.

~~~
ernopp
Permitting sales of illegal drugs & services is a defining feature probably
worth mentioning.

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couterSpell
Nah bruh. He's where he deserves to be. Just like the Sackler family, he aided
and abetted the destruction of many families and actual death of many drug
users.

~~~
mips_avatar
So he deserves a strongly worded Nytimes article? Sounds pretty harsh.

~~~
couterSpell
If the world was just, the Sackler family would be buried under the jail cell
in which Ross Ulbricht will rightfully spend the rest of his days.

But alas, Big Pharma can slang dope on every block worldwide with nary a peep.

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simias
I get an error 500 on the website so I can't read the argument but quoting
Wikipedia:

>None of the procuring murder allegations were part of Ulbricht's indictment
in New York, although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.

[...]

>On the last day of trial, Serrin Turner, the NY lead prosecutor, addressed
the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire
allegations occurred. One charge of procuring murder was originally filed in
October 2013 in a separate pending indictment in Maryland (which was later
dismissed in its entirety in July 2018); the other five allegations were never
filed.

I don't really know enough about the American justice system to understand
exactly what went on there but apparently the judgement was not solely based
on the nonviolent charges?

~~~
t0t4lnoo3v2
[https://archive.fo/zjP9W](https://archive.fo/zjP9W)

------
aboutruby
> On the last day of trial, Serrin Turner, the NY lead prosecutor, addressed
> the jury and stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire
> allegations occurred.[28] One charge of procuring murder was originally
> filed in October 2013 in a separate pending indictment in Maryland (which
> was later dismissed in its entirety in July 2018);[8] the other five
> allegations were never filed.[38]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht)

~~~
lucozade
> stated that none of the six contracted murders-for-hire allegations occurred

That makes it sound like the prosecutor said that the contracts didn't occur.
The way it's worded in the source Guardian article is "The prosecutor says he
does not believe any of the killings have occurred."

In other words the prosecutor is contending that Ulbricht took out 6
unsuccessful contracts.

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the_fonz
Dude ran a drug trafficking platform and allegedly took out six (6)
assassination contracts, therefore the dude is a dangerous criminal. Trying to
portray him as some "innocent civilian" is patently dishonest. He should rot
in prison for life for what he's done.

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madez
I think fixing the sentencing in the USA requires first to overcome the
fixation on good and evil and sin which in turn requires overcoming the
abrahamistic religions.

If you are determinined someone is evil, you are willing to sentence them
irrationally harshly based on that. If, however, your guiding principle is,
that the justice system is a tool of society to keep peace and minimize
injustice (among other things) then you will come to more nuanced judgments.

There is no good and evil. These are made-up categories and super subjective.
We can unmake them, i.e. make them less powerful on the political level.

~~~
teilo
Well then, lets just commit genocide then, if there is no good and evil.
Murder, rape, pillage, extort, blackmail, kidnap, torture, defraud. Go to
town.

Good and evil are not made up categories.

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faissaloo
The idea that he didn't know what he was harbouring is absurd, Silk Road
became well known precisely because of the things that were openly and
blatantly sold on there.

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cletus
This is the country with the "war on drugs" that have 10+ year sentences to
largely minorites convicted of possession of a few grams of cannabis so this
really shouldn't be that surprising.

Focusing on the crimes being nonviolent seems like a poor tactic. Look at the
outrage in about no one going to jail for financial malfeasance, for example.

But I have 3 particular issues with the sentence here:

1\. The government has moved him twice across the country from New York to
Colorado then Arizona. The Wikipedia article mentions his mother moved to
Colorado to be closer to him. That seems cruel.

2\. Why a high security prison that's going to put him in with actual
murderers and violent offenders?

3\. Life plus 40 years does seem like overkill. I mean look at the sentences
for the Elizabeth Smart kidnappers by comparison.

At the end of the day though I have limited sympathy. Like what did he expect
to happen?

~~~
lucozade
> Why a high security prison..?

I'm going to hazard a guess that that's fairly standard for drug kingpins
which is what Ulbricht was convicted of (amongst other things).

> look at the sentences for the Elizabeth Smart kidnappers by comparison

I thought Mitchell got life without parole too, no? Ulbricht's are all
concurrent so it amounts to the same sentence.

