[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.