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Comment by eternalban | Hacker News Reader

I missed this. I can not believe ths kid got 2 life sentences + 40 and no appeal. It's like something out of a 19th century novel

There is a petition for Ross:

https://www.change.org/p/clemency-for-ross-ulbricht-condemne...

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Let's not infantalize him. Twenty six years old is not a "kid." He was a grown ass man who attempted to have someone killed. That being said, a double life sentence is extreme, considering many actual murderers get out after less than twenty years. Our draconian drug punishment escalations are not good.

Please stop repeating lies about a man who can't defend himself.

Those charges were dropped and there is no reason to believe that the state was not lying when they laid them on him.

> Those charges were dropped

Dropping charges doesn't mean it's not true, just that the prosecutor did not want to pursue the case, in light of other prosecution available.

Regardless, we don't punish people on the basis of dropped charges.

If he wasn't convicted, then we shouldn't talk about the punishment he deserves to get for those charges.

Courts do not. We however can express opinions as we see fit.

Indeed, "can" and "should" are very different

We know Kings of England have committed murders. We know dictators have committed atrocities. We know Germany attempted to get Mexico to attack the US. Should we not talk about those things just because they haven’t been tried in court? No, that would be crazy. We should talk about those things because they did happen and there is evidence.

And there is evidence in this scenario too, is there not?

> And there is evidence in this scenario too, is there not?

Not all evidence is created equal and the situation here where there was a functioning fair court system is quite different from situations where there isn't one. There was definitely some irregularities in the investigation, and a possibility of entrapment.

Regardless, i don't take issue with talking about it, i just take issue with saying he deserves to be punished for it when the allegations were never proven in court. He should be punished for the things its proven he did, not the things he might have done.

I thought we were presumed innocent until proven guilty? Or should I just allege some charges against you?

In truth, that really depends on where you fit into the legal/court system. Spurious allegations can be libelous, so make sure you have the right kind of clout, position, and justification before alleging anything serious, especially if you fall into the "private citizen" camp when making the aforementioned claims.

I didn't realize people were sentenced based off dropped charges?

socially guilty or innocent. there are some that all it takes is accusations but legally absolutely.

Yes. This should scare us all. Hiring a hitman was both suggested and pushed by someone acting on behalf of the government, and an entrapment defence had better than a 50/50 chance of working, or they wouldn't have dropped charges.

Ross is no moral hero, but let's not pretend he was treated fairly or reasonably by law enforcement or the court.

Ulbricht kept very detailed records of everything he did, sorted by year/month/day, stored on his Windows laptop.

He definitely thought he had ordered the death of at least one, possibly more, errant employees.

I am aware that the errant employee and the hitman he hired were all FBI cutouts.

I think you should presume innocent until proven guilty, if you’re a fan of our court system. And he was not convicted of attempting to have anyone killed.

I do not acknowledge the authority of the legal system of the United States of America over my own beliefs and statements. However, if I did, I'd just call to your attention the fact he was sentenced partly based on this the transgression I named, even if he was not charged with it. That would be enough for me to drop the "alleged" verbiage, were I inclined to put it there in the first place.

The fact that he was sentenced based on a crime he was not convicted for is a travesty and in my opinion unconstitutional (violates the rights to a public jury trial and to due process).

I believe the GP was attempting to draw attention to the fact that the majority of Ross's sentence was based on mere allegation of a crime. (Granted, with good evidence, but without due process.) The probable reason charges were dropped on the conspiracy to commit murder charge was it probably would have fallen to an entrapment defence. Hiring a hitman was suggested and pushed by someone acting on behalf of the government at the time.

Ross is no hero, but also, let's not pretend the court system acted reasonably here. If they had even a 50/50 chance of getting him on conspiracy to commit murder, they would have brought the charge to trial. The prosecutor didn't drop the charge to be nice. The evidence of entrapment probably would have hurt the case as a whole, so they dropped the conspiracy to commit murder charge. Yet, it appears this strong suggestion that he committed a serious crime played the majority role in his sentencing.

This should scare anyone around the world, given the long reach of US law enforcement. The prosecutor kept embarrassing entrapment details out of the trial and still got a heavy sentence for just the allegation of a crime. The prosecutor got to have their cake and eat it too.

> the fact he was sentenced partly based on this the transgression I named, even if he was not charged with it

Do you have a source for that? IANAL but as far as I know that is not the way the US legal system caries out sentencing.

The petition for the Supreme Court to hear Ross Ulbright's case discusses some of the legal background in the second section https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-950/24860/20171...

Apparently there has been a long standing practice of judges finding facts to justify a longer second, but it's questionable whether the practice is Constitutional.

Are you asserting he did not attempt to have anybody killed? Or just saying that a court never determined it?

Regardless, court convictions correctly use a very high standard of proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Legal_st...

That's appropriate because a) it's important to be very careful when assigning criminal penalties, and b) they spend a lot of time and money getting at the truth.

But when discussing things casually, as here, neither is true. I'd say HN runs somewhere between "reasonable to believe" and "balance of probabilities". And that's about right. If I'm wrong about Ulbricht, no particular harm comes to him; if more information comes to light and I change my mind, there's no damage to undo.

The whole thread is about a harsh court sentence, so yes - it is very appropriate here.

> And that's about right. If I'm wrong about Ulbricht, no particular harm comes to him; if more information comes to light and I change my mind, there's no damage to undo.

Would you not agree that what you said is equally true for one who judges people at roughly the same high standard as courts?

If you want to use a court-like standard, sure, go wild. Although I think it's a mistake in that you don't have a court's powers. You're guaranteed to err on the side of the guilty even more than a court, even though you have much less reason to bias your judgment that way.

You should see what people say about tax evader Al Capone.

That's the first and hopefully last time I've seen "grown ass man" on HN. This isn't Reddit (although a tiny bit of Reddit humor and wordplay is nice from time to time).

But good news! The US draconian drug punishment laws are changing as we speak... for users, that is. Sellers are probably still at significant risk.

I do cringe at the sight of reading "grown ass man" considering that it does not really add much to what "grown man" could have accomplished. Thanks, I am glad to know I am not the only one who feels this.

He was never convicted of trying to kill someone.

YMMV, but good grief, at 26, you haven’t [yet] lived. Kid was not intended to patronize him, so try “young man” if you prefer.

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