[boomboomsubban]

>Ross was smeared with false, unprosecuted allegations of planning murder-for-hire that much of the media amplified through inaccurate and sensationalized reporting. The allegations were never charged at trial, never proven, never submitted to, or ruled on by, a jury, and eventually dismissed with prejudice.

[EdwardDiego]

Well, that sounds dispassionate and unbiased.

And oh hey, he's a model prisoner

...none of this is utilizing actual facts, it's just assertions and emotive wording.

[boomboomsubban]

The website is called "free Ross Ulbricht," they aren't quiet about their bias.

>none of this is utilizing actual facts,

"The allegations were never charged at trial, never proven, never submitted to, or ruled on by, a jury, and eventually dismissed with prejudice" are the actual facts.

[ffggffggj]

Being proud of your bias doesn’t absolve you of its fact corruption effect, that is just silly. If anything it makes you more likely to stretch the truth.

[boomboomsubban]

I didn't say it absolves them of anything, I said that the bias was clear and unhidden.

[rob74]

The fact remains that someone should be considered innocent of a crime until proven guilty. If the prosecution couldn't prove that he hired a hitman (sounds like they didn't even try), then that shouldn't influence his sentencing.

[jahewson]

That’s not how it works. The evidentiary standard for a jury is “beyond a reasonable doubt” but for the sentencing judge is “preponderance of the evidence”, with the caveat that the judge can’t use that to hand down a sentence harsher than legally permitted by what the jury convicted on (in this case narcotics distribution - resulting in deaths of overdose victims).

[pcthrowaway]

At the very least, the 2 agents involved in his case being found to be corrupt and having forged evidence, should cast additional doubt on the murder for hire.

I'm not saying he didn't do it, but had that been known at the time, I think it would have been less decided that his sentencing should take the alleged murders for hire into account.

He should be tried for that separately at this point

[jahewson]

It went to appeal and all those points were addressed. But I agree that it would have been much better to actually prosecute those murder-for-hire charges. Even if acquitted, the judge can still take the accusations into account during sentencing (due to the different evidentiary standards).

[from]

> That’s not how it works

No one is arguing about how it works, they're arguing how they think it should work. Otherwise there would be no discussion here at all.

[boomskats]

It objectively compares his sentence of 2 lifetimes + 40 years to the sentences of the biggest actual drug dealers on silk road, as well as the founders of the bigger silk road 2.0, all of whom got less than 10 years. I would consider that to be satisfactory actual fact utilization.

[superchroma]

"First-time offender, All non-violent charges, Two life sentences + 40 years without parole"

Seems pretty clear cut. I would like to take this moment to remind you that Ghislane Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years.

[thaumasiotes]

US judges are free to sentence a convict for allegations of which he was acquitted. Sentencing him for allegations that were dismissed isn't really different.

[superchroma]

Yes I know they are free to do that but that doesn't mean that it's fair.

[thaumasiotes]

Well, I'd agree; the fact that that's allowed is an obvious miscarriage of justice.

But it's also how the system is explicitly supposed to work; it doesn't make for a strong "facts-based" argument for clemency.

[vkou]

Is it?

There's two angles to justice. The legal, and the moral.

What was done to him was legal, and nobody's denying that.

Given the scope of the crimes he was convicted for, I don't think it was immortal to throw the entire book at him, to the maximum possible legal extent.