Every single government actor involved in this case is far more guilty than Ross and, frankly, they are the ones that deserve prison.
Yes, Ross should have realized you can't massively break the law and get away with it. He made a big mistake.
But the mistake he made was assuming that other people were more benevolent than they really are.
This young man viewed the world with a child-like, rosy-eyed perspective, and for that, he gets crushed by the boot of government brutality.
Disclaimer: I have no involvement with any dark nets or online drug trade.
edit: I don't know if he hired hitmen and if he did, I suspect it was in his own defense.
Legally, they do not. If you have a problem with that, take it up with (relevant to the federal laws at issue here) the Congress.
Try harder, like by working to convince the public that such a right should exist, so that other people join you in your effort to convince Congress to change the law.
Of course, you haven't provided any argument here for your position on rights, just a bald statement that the right you would like to exist does, as if that were some kind of uncontroversial, universally-accepted thing that required no justification.
Would you like a list of examples where extremely illegal actions are clearly and controversially moral, or can you think of historical examples yourself?