Absolutely it is, on a few grounds. First off just looking at the various conspiracy charges (Money Laundering conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, and criminal empire conspiracy) can lead to numerous decades each in jail time. Functionally speaking this would lead to a life sentence but it could be something like 200 years in prison without possibility of parol.
On the count of conspiracy to commit murder, 6 times over, if those are ever brought to trial, can come with an actual life sentence, or life sentences. It is very likely he could face numerous sentences of life in prison plus a number of years of prison on top of that. All of this depends on the judge and how s/he would like to handling the sentencing portion of this trial, which probably will not happen for weeks or months.
As there was no plea agreement accepted by the defendant, it is quite likely that the prosecution has always believes that he would be found guilty and pay a very high price for his crimes. Because of this they either a) never gave him a plea deal to consider or b) gave a very costly plea deal which wouldn't have been much better than just going through the trial and going to jail for life.
I thought, generally, if someone was convicted of numerous charges, time spent would count concurrently for _all_ charges. So all the conspiracy charges would lead to a multi-decade long sentence rather than 200+ years. Could you shed some light on why that's not how it works for this particular case?
The most I can say is, it depends. Federal sentencing guidelines are interesting for a few reasons.
First, there is a formula which, quite literally, is a mathematical formula telling the judge a federal minimum and a federal maximum range of times for a crime. This is based on a number of data points surrounding the laws broken.
Second, each law has rules about its own sentencing guidelines baked in. Let's look at the specifics for Conspiracy for a Criminal Enterprise: 20 year minimum for first conviction, 30 year minimum for second conviction, a life sentence for a "extremely large enterprise". There are tables and figures for figuring out what all of this means for minimum to maximum and so on. I am not going to attempt to say I understand how this particular Federal judge will try to figure it out.
Third, in general sentences of multiple convictions on the same trial are supposed to be run concurrently. However, this can be changed if a court decides otherwise, for various reasons. Additionally it can be changed if a specific law states that it should not be run concurrently, but instead consecutively. The judge must actively consider whether to impose a concurrent or a consecutive sentence accounting to the US Code (18 US Code 3553 (a) [1]). Again I do not want to speak for a Federal judge but, I could easily see a judge interpreting these rules in this case to justify a consecutive instead of concurrent sentence.
I agree with you 100% that Mr. Ulbricht will likely not see the maximum consecutive sentence in this case. However, there are no hard and fast rules in Federal sentencing, they are guidelines. It could be decades, it could be quite a bit more.
It depends on the various statutes (which I'm just not sure of in this case), but judges at their discretion can usually sentence concurrently or consecutively. It wouldn't be unheard of for some of his charges to be concurrent and others to be consecutive, but that'll depend on the statute, the judge and potentially, the other jurisdictions where he continues to await trial (i.e., if he's convicted in his next trial, assuming that still takes place, that sentencing could happen consecutively or concurrently, depending on any number of variables).
I thought a conviction was sentenced based on the most severe available for a set of charges, not all charges cumulatively. There were a lot of articles recently about how the media often used some common misunderstanding to say someone faced "centuries" behind bars for something that probably would've maxed out around 20 years.
>If a judge wants to order the sentences to run consecutively or concurrently, she must state so specifically in the sentencing order, which is the court document that sets a defendant's sentences. If she doesn't do so, the sentences will run consecutively automatically.
I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of being imprisoned for the remainder of your life. Why do they even do it, instead of just execution? Might as well, right?
Especially for something like this. I haven't been following it closely at all, but presumably he hasn't stabbed/shot anyone, right? So why isn't it "prison for N years then we keep an eye on you for the rest of your life"? That'd be a whoooole lot cheaper than locking him up until he dies, and a much more reasonable punishment, IMO, for anyone who hasn't proved themselves some kind of psycho-killer.
I agree that lengthy imprisonment should be very rare, certainly for a much smaller proportion of crimes than it is currently used in the US. The current US sentencing system is geared towards very high sentences though (anomalously high by just about any standards except perhaps China's). So it would require a fairly major reform to fix. Right now if anyone is convicted of a felony in a federal court it's really easy for the sentencing range to be decades, which is made worse by the fact that there are really a lot of federal felonies (and some of them are broadly written).
One of the political/philosophical reasons is that the U.S. seems fonder than many countries of a retribution-based model of justice, where the goal of imprisoning someone is not only to protect society and dissuade future would-be criminals, but to "punish" them in a metaphysical sense. Many European countries have shifted in the past half-century to a more utilitarian model, in which the goal of the prison system is seen as almost purely targeted at reducing crimes. From that perspective, imprisoning people for particularly long periods of time often doesn't end up as a very appealing solution, admittedly depending strongly on how you weight factors.
That and "governments make mistakes" are the two arguments you can use pretty effectively against the death penalty on people who are not morally opposed to it.
Personally, I have no problem with the state putting a bullet in the head of a murder, but the thought of a wrong verdict and some of the batsh_t crazy things courts have done leaves me fearful of any capital punishment.
I am particularly unamused by some of the things prosecutors have done that have lead to false convictions and how few remedies and punishments for corrupt prosecutors.
Plus, in the sad cold-blooded way of limited budgets, I can find no justification for spending the extra money.
In a perfect world there would be no capital crimes committed. In a near perfect world courts would be 100% right. We live in neither and should act like it.
Agreed - you can't reinstate a life, nor can you reinstate some fraction of a life.
If the justice system fucks up and convicts an innocent man, it can't be undone, the damage is permanent. (Not saying Mr. Ulbricht is innocent, the evidence suggests otherwise, but still...)
Don't be dense. That's obvious. Equally obvious is that you can give back the future years innocent would have spent in prison. Unlike how you can't give back the future years of someone you killed
Remember that until the trial began, his defenders kept on saying he wasn't DPR and had nothing to do with Silk Road (including his mother), and then the defense admitted it in the beginning of the trial.
The BTC payments to the supposed assassins were also sourced directly to Ulbricht's wallet, so if you're going to indulge in counterfactuals about the "hit man" story, they need to revolve around Ulbricht twice staging elaborate hits in order to... what? What's the thing a staged assassination could cover up that's worse than an assassination?
The evidence is incredibly flimsy and has changed throughout.
The most significant reason I believe these charges aren't true is that the government essentially revealed its hand in trumpeting them so loudly at the bail proceeding and in public at that time, without yet charging him (the narrative is laid out here: http://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross-...).
To me, I now need to see overwhelming evidence in order to buy this. And that does not exist, or at least hasn't been presented yet. So now, we have to look at what evidence does exist: the ludicrous alleged email exchange (here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss...).
I don't know about you, but this seems flatly unbelievable to me. And even if the dialogue weren't so Hollywood, let's not forget that the alleged victims don't even exist.
And most importantly, if this is the only evidence, the government was obligated to say so a long time ago rather than the song and dance that occurred during the bail proceeding.
Also, the government thinks he didn't actually get people killed, but that he was tricked into thinking that he had.
Why would Ross admit to founding Silk Road if it wasn't true?
This wasn't the only evidence; there were large bitcoin payments directly from Ross's wallet, as well as journal entries. Ross is a known liar, as he claimed not to be the founder of Silk Road before admitting he was, so I don't trust what he says.
And in every other state there are much more powerful prison guard unions which have a huge influence on our laws.
Info from wikipedia on the California prison guard union:
"...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California. The union spends heavily on influencing political campaigns, and on lobbying legislators and other government officials. CCPOA also hires public relations firms and political polling firms."
Agreed, if Ulbricht hadn't tried to call a hit out on someone, life in prison would seem unreasonable. Based on the information we have, though, it seems pretty certain that he did.
Whether or not the hit went through, he tried to do it, which definitely puts him on the sociopathic spectrum.
If I had a button on some website that would cause someone to be killed, I wouldn't click it. A button on some website that enabled people to get the drugs they want, though? I wouldn't have quite the same moral quandaries.
Don't get me wrong, the hard drugs are bad and in essence the people who use them pathologically are victims of their own brain chemistry; I'm just not so certain that life in prison for someone who enables that is actually a solution to that problem (but the effectiveness of prohibition by force is a whole 'nother story).
It seems clear to me that the motivation for the prosecutors and LEOs involved is to crush the concept of an unregulated, international, black market. I'm definitely not convinced that this prosecution will actually produce the desired goal. Silk road was just the first of many darknet black markets that emerged to fulfill a need. Others are still thriving and as they get shut down, more will spring up in their place, gradually improving their ability to evade detection/termination.
'keeping an eye on' turns out to not work very well. Too easy to just disappear and become another person. So, for someone who will misbehave again its either life in prison or death.
It would be trivial for the government to keep a 24/7 watch on any given individual. If you're talking about someone who has already been convicted at trial, there's no technical or legal barrier to monitoring Ulbricht both physically and digitally for the rest of his life.
Practically speaking, of course, that's what's going to happen anyway.
Yes, several of those convictions carry the potential for a life sentence. Additionally, the New York Times reports that the two most serious convictions carry minimum sentences of 20 years and 10 years (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/nyregion/man-behind-silk-r...).
It certainly happens. The high profile case of Sholom Rubashkin for example: Various forms of financial fraud and an effective (due to age) life sentence.
Yeah, I'm inclined to be skeptical about that claim.
I'm more inclined to believe that the union of "drug dealers regularly involved in violence" and "drug dealers who reign in their violent ways to instead spend time on the computer filling SR orders" is near zero.
Of course it is near zero. But when demand dries up, so do the margins. And with profitability down violence just does not make sense from cost/benefit analysis.
Using may be a self-harm. Acquisition is often not. And once use makes acquisition a problem, violence ensues. And even when it doesn't, the ability to defend oneself from the medical ravages against the body diminishes and the cost is places upon society. The society that chose, one way or another, to cut that off at the source.
Or attempt to.
Personally? I don't have much issue with the use of many (though not all) drugs, in and of themselves. But they aren't used in an isolated vacuum.
the ability to defend oneself from the medical ravages against the body diminishes and the cost is places upon society
The problem with that argument is that, not only is limiting it to drugs is arbitrary (why not convict the guy who becomes morbidly obese or extremely anorexic?), but I think it often is simply wrong, because it ignores the real alternative. The medical bills of an heroin addict may be expensive, but a guy who dies in his 60s from drug use is probably much cheaper if he had died in his 90s, possibly with some chronic condition.
Besides, imprisoning him is probably more expensive still, so it's cutting your nose to spite the face anyway.
If people are committing crimes to support their drug habit, you can just convict them for those crimes, so that doesn't justify criminalizing the acquisition.
I guess the total cost of meth would be hard to calculate, but I'm totally confident that the health costs tied to obesity are far more damaging than meth. Meth just isn't as common as obesity.
Yes, this is precisely the indirect cost I alluded to in my immediately previous comment. That said, far more (several orders of magnitude more) people die from cheeseburgers than (directly or indirectly) from meth. In human lives, McDonald's is by far the greater risk.
Yea, I got that buddy. The point of my question was whether life is in the realm of possibility when news outlets often report the absolute statutory max that the offender could theoretically receive yet they end being sentenced for less.
