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POLL: Silk Road Perp Gets Life - Good Sentence?

Did Dread Pirate Roberts get a fair sentence?

  • Yes. In fact, he got off easy. Should be executed.

    Votes: 4 12.9%
  • Yes. Life without parole sounds fair to me.

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Yes. Life sounds fair, but parole should be available in the usual way.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No. Significant jail time is appropriate but life is ridiculous. This was a non-violent crime.

    Votes: 12 38.7%
  • No. A stiff fine and a short jail term sound about right.

    Votes: 4 12.9%
  • No. Little or no time. Maybe a fine.

    Votes: 4 12.9%
  • No. Heck, the feds should not only let him off, but hire him.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The feds should not only hire him, they should keep the Silk Road running to raise revenues.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • What are you thinking? The fed WAS running Silk Road. (This is known as the OiT option.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Something else which I will explain.

    Votes: 2 6.5%

  • Total voters
    31
Nov 28, 2010
83,706
37,527
113
Maryland
So, Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, the alleged creator of the internet's Amazon for drugs, has now been sentenced to life. One report said that was life without parole, but I haven't seen confirmation of that yet. Several of the charges against him carried the possibility of life sentences, so that seems plausible.

Reasonable sentence? Too tough? Too lenient?

Here's a question. If, as I believe is the case, Dread Pirate Roberts did not actually handle the drugs, and certainly did not engage in drug-related violence, but just ran the store, how does that compare with the banksters who laundered billion$ for violent drug cartels? They presumably didn't handle the drugs either, or whack their competition, but they knew what they were doing and they were arguably profiting from a much worse criminal enterprise (because of the scope and violence of the cartels and for other reasons). Yet nobody served a minute.
 
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Here's a question. If, as I believe is the case, Dread Pirate Roberts did not actually handle the drugs, and certainly did not engage in drug-related violence, but just ran the store, how does that compare with the banksters who laundered billion$ for violent drug cartels? They presumably didn't handle the drugs either, or whack their competition, but they knew what they were doing and they were arguably profiting from a much worse criminal enterprise (because of the scope and violence of the cartels and for other reasons). Yet nobody served a minute.

I agree with this 100%.

Unfortunately the systemic infiltration of the money fraudsters in our government/legal system trumps the lone wolves who commit crimes of a similar nature. The dude should get a fine and probation. Having said that I do not have sympathy for him as he knew the risks going in to his venture. It was all on him.
 
He was sentenced in federal court to life. There is no parole in the federal system. Under some circumstances a federal lifer can get out after age 72.

The sentence is ridiculous. The federal criminal justice system is outlandish example of facism. There are many nickel and dime street crack-cocaine dealers doing federal life sentences.

People need to quit agonizing over the death penalty for scumbag murders and direct their attention to federal drug sentences that are much more inhuman.
 
I'm torn on this. I want to legalize drugs. Pretty much all of them. But I think this is the right sentence (and voted for that).

The banking analogy fails for me because he created this new market/system and they've simply allowed (ignorantly or maliciously) people to use an existing (legal) system.

It's just tough to say this isn't the right sentence when he clearly knew how illegal his activity was, and it's not the justice system's job to save him from that.
 
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Defendant's sentencing letter submitted to the judge states in part:

"As I see it, a life sentence is more similar in nature to a death sentence than it is to a sentence...Both condemn you to die in prison, a life sentence just takes longer," Ulbricht wrote. "I've had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age.

"Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker."

Statutory minimum was 20 years, maximum life. Haven't researched the sentencing guidelines, but in light of quantity likely provided sentencing range of 360 mos- Life. Judge had power to depart and impose any sentence from 240 months upward.

Note parenthetically that sentencing statute requires minimum sentence necessary to achieve sentencing goals.....Hard for me to relate to thought process that concludes 20 YEARS is insufficient punishment.
 
The government was just mad they weren't getting their cut. The deep web is littered with sites such as his, some now have more transactions than The Silk Road ever had. Too bad the Feds can't even put a dent in the child porn sites that are strewn all over.

I think the sentence is so harsh to obviously to dissuade others from running any illegal sites on the Deep Web. If Ulbricht hadn't made some major mistakes he might still be running it today as it is very hard to catch some of these people. That guy I posted about in another thread had been making child porn and running "red room" sites for four years before he was caught. The only reason he was caught was because 2 of his victims escaped and went to the police.
 
Burn him at the stake!Kill him! Or not and sell his body parts.Or is his body parts to old to use?So confusing these threads are.Libs think human flesh should be good to sell.

Would he taste good marinated in a good chianti?
 
He still faces an indictment in Maryland for a murder for hire scheme. He hired what turned out to be an undercover police officer to torture and kill a Silk Road employee and paid him $80,000 after being shown faked pictures of the employee being tortured.
 
He still faces an indictment in Maryland for a murder for hire scheme. He hired what turned out to be an undercover police officer to torture and kill a Silk Road employee and paid him $80,000 after being shown faked pictures of the employee being tortured.
Allegedly.
I'm all for legalizing pot, but heroin and meth kill people.
making them illegal makes them more dangerous and feeds crime syndicates massive amounts of money. You can't prevent all bad things from happening, but prohibition makes it far worse. To say otherwise is to ignore our own history as well as modern events in Portugal. Drug Prohibition has always made things worse and decriminalization makes it better. Every example shows this.
 
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dread-pirate-roberts.jpg
 
Allegedly.

making them illegal makes them more dangerous and feeds crime syndicates massive amounts of money. You can't prevent all bad things from happening, but prohibition makes it far worse. To say otherwise is to ignore our own history as well as modern events in Portugal. Drug Prohibition has always made things worse and decriminalization makes it better. Every example shows this.

Please cite some examples, I'll take a look.
 
So, Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, the alleged creator of the internet's Amazon for drugs, has now been sentenced to life. One report said that was life without parole, but I haven't seen confirmation of that yet. Several of the charges against him carried the possibility of life sentences, so that seems plausible.

Reasonable sentence? Too tough? Too lenient?

Here's a question. If, as I believe is the case, Dread Pirate Roberts did not actually handle the drugs, and certainly did not engage in drug-related violence, but just ran the store, how does that compare with the banksters who laundered billion$ for violent drug cartels? They presumably didn't handle the drugs either, or whack their competition, but they knew what they were doing and they were arguably profiting from a much worse criminal enterprise (because of the scope and violence of the cartels and for other reasons). Yet nobody served a minute.

In my opinion the more interesting part of this story is just the mentality of Ross. Here we have an extremely intelligent well educated young man who from all reports comes from a middle class background. I'm sure he could have made a decent living doing something totally legit but he choose to go down this path. I wonder in his mind did he just think he would never get caught? Was hubris his great weakness that he thought he could do this forever and nobody would ever catch on to him? I just find it interesting when people who have many options in life chose a criminal path. As opposed to people who have few choices of ways to be successful who chose a criminal path.
 
In my opinion the more interesting part of this story is just the mentality of Ross. Here we have an extremely intelligent well educated young man who from all reports comes from a middle class background. I'm sure he could have made a decent living doing something totally legit but he choose to go down this path. I wonder in his mind did he just think he would never get caught? Was hubris his great weakness that he thought he could do this forever and nobody would ever catch on to him? I just find it interesting when people who have many options in life chose a criminal path. As opposed to people who have few choices of ways to be successful who chose a criminal path.
Maybe he's a libertarian revolutionary. It should be legal to sell drugs, therefore he did.
.
 
21st amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Drug decriminalization in Portugal.
One of the problems with criminalizing drugs the way we have is that it undermines trust in the government. Some drugs are really dangerous; many aren't. When laws and enforcement treat them alike or nearly the same and people know they aren't, that's a problem for credibility. [A problem further exacerbated when some drugs that are alike are treated very differently - cocaine vs crack being the obvious example.]

I never thought of this before but could that be a reason why the GOP is less favorable toward decriminalization? They like to pretend to be the anti-government party. This feeds their meme that government can't do anything right.
 
Maybe he's a libertarian revolutionary. It should be legal to sell drugs, therefore he did.
.

Maybe that is his beliefs but he will now die in jail for those beliefs. Maybe he went into it knowing that was a possible outcome and was willing to take that chance for what he believes in. If so then I say kudos to him for having the courage of his convictions. For me I don't have a strong enough libertarian belief system to trade my life for that cause.
 
21st amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Drug decriminalization in Portugal.

Naturally you'd cite prohibition, a bit surprised you cited another. Not exactly "every example" worthy.

Edit to add:

Researching Portugal a bit further, I found this:

Not a cure but certainly not a disaster: Many advocates for decriminalizing or legalizing illicit drugs around the world have gloried in Portugal's success. They point to its effectiveness as an unambiguous sign that decriminalization works.


But some social scientists have cautioned against attributing all the numbers to decriminalization itself, as there are other factors at play in the national decrease in overdoses, disease and usage.


At the turn of the millennium, Portugal shifted drug control from the Justice Department to the Ministry of Health and instituted a robust public health model for treating hard drug addiction. It also expanded the welfare system in the form of a guaranteed minimum income. Changes in the material and health resources for at-risk populations for the past decade are a major factor in evaluating the evolution of Portugal's drug situation.


Alex Stevens, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Kent and co-author of the aforementioned criminology article, thinks the global community should be measured in its takeaways from Portugal.


"The main lesson to learn decriminalizing drugs doesn't necessarily lead to disaster, and it does free up resources for more effective responses to drug-related problems," Stevens told Mic.


If we are going to look at your approach, I think this type of thing becomes absolutely necessary. Treat the mental health as opposed to the drug abuse stemming from it, and treat poverty, which often leads to drug use/other crimes.

I'm not sure the US is willing to treat mental health, and many are damn sure against expanding welfare.

We have seen in the past few years PERFECT examples of the mental health system failing and resulting in disaster....and yet nothing has done to improve mental health.

Case in point: Brandstad summarily shut the State's MHIs, while claiming to search for private options, nothing so far.
 
Allegedly.

making them illegal makes them more dangerous and feeds crime syndicates massive amounts of money. You can't prevent all bad things from happening, but prohibition makes it far worse. To say otherwise is to ignore our own history as well as modern events in Portugal. Drug Prohibition has always made things worse and decriminalization makes it better. Every example shows this.
While I agree with you that our war on drugs has made the problem worse, we make zillions of things illegal without big problems.

Why are illegal drugs like pot, coke and H a huge problem while so many other banned or tightly regulated substances aren't? Why the big war on pot and not, say, on Valium - which is also abused and is orders of magnitudes more dangerous?
 
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