zlacker

>>Ozarki+(OP)
I think his original sentence was absolutely deserved—even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped, I think it's clear he did many things in the same vein. Even if you support his original pursuit of a free and open online marketplace, I think most people would agree he took it a bridge too far in the end.

That said, I do think he absolutely deserved to be released, not because he didn't deserve to be locked up in the first place, but because he's clearly been rehabilitated and has done great work during his time in prison. All that considered, ten years seems like a not unreasonable prison sentence for what he did. I hope he'll continue to do good when he's released.

>>rappat+0c
Ross Ulbricht was not sentenced for murder-for-hire charges.

Those allegations were used to deny him bail and influenced public perception, they were not part of his formal conviction or sentencing.

He was convicted on non-violent charges related to operating the Silk Road website, including drug distribution, computer hacking, and money laundering.

Does this change your opinion of sentencing being well-deserved?

>>bko+Yf
He was found during sentencing to be guilty of hiring a hit on a competitor using a preponderance of evidence (lower then presumption of innocence). While this is a lower standard than a conviction, it is still a higher standard than most apply in public discourse.

>>cmdli+Sh
That isn't fair, the point of the trial is to test whether something is to be acted on. To act on something that wasn't directly part of the trial is a bit off. I'm sure the judge is acting in the clear legally, but if someone is going to be sentenced for attempted murder then that should be after a trial that formally accuses them of the crime.

>>roenxi+Kj
This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing downward based on mitigating evidence. For both aggravating and mitigating circumstances evidence does need to be submitted, and there are standards of proof to be applied. It's just that the procedural rules can be different and, depending on the context and jurisdiction, sufficiency can be decided by the judge alone. In some jurisdictions, for example, aggravating evidence may need to be put to the jury, while mitigating evidence need not be.

The U.S. is rather unique in providing a right to jury trials for most--in practice almost all, including misdemeanor--criminal cases. And this is a major factor for why sentencing is so harsh and prosecutions so slow in the U.S. In myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the system to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals, with overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as cudgels. Be careful about what kind of "protections" you want to impose.

>>wahern+No
> This cuts both ways as judges often adjust their sentencing downward based on mitigating evidence.

It isn't supposed to cut both ways. The prosecution is supposed to have the higher burden, and admitting unproven allegations is excessively prejudicial.

> In myriad ways the cost of criminal trials has induced the system to arrive at its current state favoring plea deals, with overlapping crimes and severe maximum penalties as cudgels. Be careful about what kind of "protections" you want to impose.

The lesson from this should be to make the protections strong enough that they can't be thwarted like this. For example, prohibit plea bargaining so that all convictions require a trial and it's forbidden to impose any penalty for demanding one.

It's not supposed to be efficient. It's supposed to be rare.

>>Anthon+aK
So e.g. >90% (or whatever it’s now multiplied by several times) should be entirely ignored because the legal/judicial system won’t have enough resources to prosecute them?

>>wqaatw+wL
Don't pass laws that wide swaths of the public don't respect, which would dramatically reduce the number of cases.

When the laws are ones that everyone agrees should be crimes, like murder, spend the resources to convict anyone who commits the crime.

>>Anthon+9N
So police should ignore all crimes other than murder? Because that’s what you’re going to get…

e.g. nobody will prosecute any property related and others low level crimes (e.g. damage is less than hundreds or at least tens of thousands). Crime rates will increase and the system will collapse at some point.

>>wqaatw+1i1
If you prosecute property crimes, you don't get a lot of property crimes, because prosecutions for that crime act as an effective deterrent and then the courts aren't overwhelmed with property crime cases even if the few cases they do get are full jury trials. You only get widespread property crime cases when you don't prosecute them.

By contrast, drug use has no theft victim to report the crime and then even harsh penalties don't act as a deterrent because detection rates are low and addiction is a stronger motivator than the spoils of petty theft. So you would stop prosecuting recreational drug use (compensating by increasing addiction treatment programs etc.), and thereby also eliminate all of the associated crimes as drug cartels murder over territory and drug users commit serious robberies to afford street drug prices that otherwise wouldn't cost more than a bottle of aspirin, avoiding the need to prosecute those either.

At which point crime goes down and you can spend more resources prosecuting the remaining cases.