[mikeyouse]

> the 5 had only chat logs as "evidence".

Chat logs and of course the payments, from wallets known to be controlled by Ross, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars that correspond precisely with the chat logs.

From the judge again;

    He commissioned the hits, there is no discussion of
    hypotheticals, he paid actual funds. He paid hundreds
    of thousands of dollars which were, in fact, paid. He is 
    told when the murders are completed, he was provided
    with a photo of the murder scene with random numbers
    that he had provided to the would-be assassins. That
    there had been no confirmation of any of the deaths
    does not eliminate the fact that he directed violence
    and directed the use of violence.

[trhway]

the similarity between Force's setup and these ones is just striking. That crap would never pass a jury and probably many of judges would kick it out too. No wonder that these cases don't even have a status of formal charges.

The judge dealt Ulbricht additional punishment just on the base of preponderance of evidence as seen by the judge. Thus effectively punishing Ulbricht for the alleged crimes of murder-for-hire. Such loophole is a clear violation of :

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,..."

and

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ..."

Ulbricht wasn't indicted, nor prosecuted, nor convicted by a jury for these 5 alleged murder-for-hires. Thus he can't be punished for them. Whether he actually did it or not, what happened in those proceedings isn't a justice.

[foldr]

He admitted in court that he made the payments (but said it was all just "role play"). So the judge's conclusion seems perfectly justified to me. If it was all a set up, he should have denied that he had the conversations and denied that he made the payments. As far as evidence is concerned, they had the logs recovered from Ross's laptop in addition to the FBI Agents' own logs of the conversations.

[trhway]

>He admitted in court that he made the payments (but said it was all just "role play"). So the judge's conclusion seems perfectly justified to me.

I'm not discussing whether he actually did it. I personally just don't know. The issue here is punishment without proper conviction. The judge's conclusion isn't sufficient to convict and punish. The charges should be brought and tried before a jury and the jury should conclude beyond reasonable doubt that it was a real thing, not just a role play or whatever. Only then he could be punished. Innocent until proven guilty. No murder for hire charges have so far been brought and tried before a jury. So he is innocent, according to the law, of the murders-for-hire. Yet he was punished for them. It is obvious violation of the basic principles of justice in US.

[foldr]

That's just false legally. Since the attempted hits were formed part of the criminal conspiracy, the judge was allowed to consider them in sentencing. He was not sentenced FOR attempted murder, but the judge took the attempts to hire hitmen into account when sentencing him on the criminal conspiracy charges. In other words, she was trying to assess "how bad" of a criminal conspiracy he was involved in, and the fact that he attempted to have people killed shows that it was pretty damn bad. Like it or not, that is ok, legally speaking.