U.S. Attorney Moves to Dismiss Murder-For-Hire Charges Against Ross Ulbricht
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Next on tap for Mr. Ulbricht is the time-honored 2255 motion. Mr. Ulbricht now has until next June to file a civil lawsuit against the US government accusing it of violating his civil rights and seeking the verdict to be set aside or his sentence to be redetermined.
Why bring it up? 2255's are far more likely to succeed than a Supreme Court petition (the high court gets more petitions every year and yet considers fewer of them every year). Why now? The law says you can't bring up a 2255 until your last conventional appeal is exhausted.
Further, the 2255 gets to be considered by the very same trial judge who convicted and sentenced him. While that's a foregone conclusion, the second circuit will no doubt thereafter be asked to consider that petition, and might decide to either set Ulbricht free or reduce his time to maybe 10 years or time served, given how ridiculously beyond the pale the original sentence was.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Ross considered the Supreme Court taking his case as being a snowball's chance in hell for the year-plus they've been sitting on the case, and has just been looking forward to finally filing his 2255.
Keep watching. It might be about to get good.
They did confirm the judgement, right?
No, circuit courts limit themselves to what your appellate counsel brings, and strictly limits what you can bring up by limiting the amount of time at argument to 30 minutes or less. That translates to, at most, 2 issues, and I'm sure Mr. Ulbricht can point to over 200 at this point (2255's have a page limit, and you can move for extra pages, but you are pretty much stuck filing a 2255 only once).
Further, the original appellate process only considers matters of law (was XYZ a crime) and not matters of fact (witness alleging XYZ was also convicted for stealing Ross' bitcoins), so the juiciest stuff was barred until now.
Further, the panel of circuit judges that originally affirmed things can differ markedly with the judges who'll grant the certificate of appealability and/or consider the 2255 petition.
The 2255 is wide open. You're limited by the number of pages (and the realization that if the first, say, 10 claims you bring up fail, maybe it wasn't likely to make a difference if you file any more).
Mention of counsel is funny, because 2/3 of 2255 issues tend to revolve around "ineffective assistance of counsel" (IAC). As such, you generally have to get a different lawyer or do it yourself, since no lawyer will accuse himself of doing a bad job with a straight face.
IAC may include anything from the attorney forgetting to bring up something important, to declaring the defendant guilty in open court, to falling asleep at trial. It generally has to be something really really unprofessional, and the defendant had to have suffered "prejudice". In other words, if you were, based on the mountain of evidence, going to be found guilty, whether or not (for example) your attorney slept with your wife, you suffered no prejudice and the verdict and sentence stand.
I'm sure in that pile of 2255 complaints will be the matter that the investigating officers and leading state witnesses (Carl Mark Force IV, FBI, and Shaun Bridges, Secret Service) committed perjury and theft and this prejudiced Ulbricht's right to a fair trial.
There will probably also be matter about unlawful search and seizure by the feds using hacking tools, etc.
I have a feeling the most fascinating stuff will be unknown to the public thus far.
The fact that Ulbricht has a locked-in life sentence on a charge that involved the murder-for-hire scheme makes a separate murder prosecution pointless. Had he actually succeeded in his plan to have someone killed, the trial would serve a purpose (for the family of the victim, at least). But he didn't.
Source: you can just read the indictment for the case he lost, which discusses the murder-for-hire scheme directly.
However, because conspiracy is a separate crime, it can in some cases survive the voiding of the underlying crime, i.e., in this case the purported attempted murder.
The Defendant is never required to disprove a criminal charge, or any factor of a criminal charge, which is what I'm saying.
However, once the prosecution has provided prima facie evidence of each factor of a criminal charge, it is generally advisable to attack the credibility/reliability of the evidence supporting that factor. Which is what you're saying. It isn't necessary for a defendant to present a defense, and in many cases defendants don't bother, since they never actually had a defense. They were simply hoping the prosecution would fail to prove its case to the jury.
It is quite possible for:
1. Billy to commit a crime.
2. The police to completely bungle their investigation.
3. Billy to be found not guilty, because of #2.
As a result:
The case against Billy has merit, because he actually did it (See #1). Also, he did it (See #1). But he should be found not guilty (See #2).
I mean, does anyone seriously dispute that Ross paid an undercover agent to murder someone? What's under dispute is whether or not the police behaved properly in this case (Which can sometimes be enough to throw out a conviction).
Yes at least one person does, the defendant.
And given that the investigating officers were -- literally -- criminals, it's not a stretch to say there's the possibility of reasonable doubt here. Someone willing to fabricate stories about stolen bitcoins could be considered likely to have fabricated other things too.
He has a marvelous, fantastic story for why he sent them, where he claims that he knew for a certainty that he was not actually ordering a 'real' hit, yet still wired hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin to the assassin. It's about as plausible as 'This pound of cocaine, along with a stolen 9mm handgun fell from the sky, right into my person, your honor, I swear they aren't mine.'
There's possibility, with all the police misconduct, for him to claim something similar to the 'fruit of the poisoned tree', which might hypothetically. get the conviction thrown out. But its pretty much a certainty that he ran a drug marketplace, and tried to assassinate someone.
It would be a prosecutor's nightmare to try a case where you have several of the principal investigators stealing funds, money-laundering, tampering with witnesses, selling internal info to the suspect, and who knows what else (we still don't know who scammed Ulbricht for the other hits, and Variety Jones has claimed that at least one more dirty cop is still on the loose). And let's not forget that FBI agent Tarbell, who 'found' the SR1 server in Iceland, beat a very hasty retreat to the private sector after what should've been a career-defining triumph, and no one wants to discuss exactly what bug supposedly spat out the IP address... I once asked a pair of FBI agents what was up with Tarbell leaving so fast, and they looked uncomfortable and didn't reply. (This is part of why Ulbricht's defense team's decision to not claim the Iceland server is widely regarded as a trial-losing mistake.)
Not only would there be little point, but any trial would likely be hugely embarrassing and discovery reveal things that the FBI and IRS and DEA would very much prefer be forgotten.
I haven't really followed this case too closely, so what exactly are you hinting at here? That the government possibly used NSA / national-security-level exploits to figure out who DPR was? That there was some level of parallel construction / evidence laundering?
We may never know what really happened; the whole Bridges/Force corruption thing, for example, is so wild no one could have dreamed it up.
However, from the descriptions like Nick Bilton's article/book puffpiece, I think it's somewhat likely (and more probable than NSA tech) that Tarbell did some unauthorized (and likely illegal) personal hacking and that's the kernel of truth behind his BS 'I was just typing in some random stuff and the server spat out an IP address at me!' story - SR1 was not very securely coded. Had this come out, it would've led to some serious evidence-tainting problems for the prosecutors because it affects everything downstream: the Iceland server, the SF IP address, the Pennsylvania backups, and finally Ross's unencrypted laptop in SF.
Parallel construction is, by definition, illegal (it's covering up illegal behavior in order to introduce evidence in court illegally). The trouble is that it's difficult to identify and prove.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/feb/03/dea-paral...
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/sunk-how-ross-ul...
(edited because apparently hyperlinks don't work the way I thought they would)
The prosecutors did not ask for what they thought was a fair sentence for the alleged crimes. Instead they asked for the biggest sentence they thought they could attain.
My guess is the clock ran out and the USAO decided their scare piece fulfilled its intended purpose. Always easier to get a conviction and maximum sentence against somebody when you can insinuate they did something even worse.
The statute of limitations is satisfied if charges are filed before the SOL expires.
The speedy trial right provides that a defendant must be brought to trial within X days of charges being filed, unless the defendant voluntarily waives that right. (In CA, it was 60 days when I still practiced crimlaw. Federal law provides for 70 days, but no trial can begin within 30 days of arraignment.)
Most defendants waive the speedy trial right for some reason, usually because their attorneys convince it's a good idea. (It never is. You never want the prosecution to have more time to investigate.)
The reason lawyers tend to ignore the speedy trial act is a practical one. They object, the judge dismisses the charges without prejudice, and the prosecution refiles the charges (or substantially similar ones). Speedy trial clock reset to zero. Everybody except the defendant shares a laugh.
In many cases (including mine), the prosecutor will of their own accord and with no apparent prompting, supersede their indictment with minimal changes, achieving much the same result. It's like hitting the snooze button on a case you want to procrastinate (or sweat/squeeze the defendant into a plea agreement).
This works great until the case is dismissed without prejudice and then the prosecution tries to refile past the statute of limitations. Whoops. Check, and mate. The only practical power of the speedy trial act.
If a judge dismisses charges, then the defendant goes free. Defendants are okay with that. Sure, it gives prosecutors time to file more charges (so long as the SOL hasn't expired), but they only get that one free bite. The second time they file, judges will only dismiss charges on prosecutor motion with prejudice.
In many cases (including mine), the prosecutor will of their own accord and with no apparent prompting, supersede their indictment with minimal changes, achieving much the same result. It's like hitting the snooze button on a case you want to procrastinate (or sweat/squeeze the defendant into a plea agreement).
It sounds like you have a bad lawyer, but you're also not understanding what's going on. The original charges must still be brought to trial within 70 days of the original indictment...unless you (through your lawyer) waived that right. The superseding indictment only extends that window by 70 days...for the new charges. And judges generally only approve superseding indictments once. After that, the prosecutors must show cause as to why they couldn't get things right the first time.
This works great until the case is dismissed without prejudice and then the prosecution tries to refile past the statute of limitations. Whoops. Check, and mate. The only practical power of the speedy trial act.
What you just described was the SOL expiring. It had nothing to do with the speedy trial act.
Umm.. thank you for your service?
It sounds like you have a bad lawyer, but you're also not understanding what's going on.
Well, I'm on my fourth (or fifth? I've lost count), and statistics suggest there must have been a bad one in there somewhere. I think I have a firmer grip than a lot of people. Allow me to demonstrate:
The original charges must still be brought to trial within 70 days of the original indictment...unless you (through your lawyer) waived that right.
Judges don't keep a running tally of non-tolled days and poll counsel on whether they want to waive their right to a speedy trial. In my particular case, 1006 days passed between original indictment and trial, and while my counsel could have brought an STA/6th amendment motion to dismiss and didn't, I wouldn't quite characterize that as waiving.
And judges generally only approve superseding indictments once.
Judges don't "approve" indictments on the federal level. Indictments (even superseding ones) come from grand juries. Judging by the number of 8th superseding, 9th superseding, and nth superseding (where n has 2 digits) indictments in a number of cases in the literature, this statement would appear to be provably false.
What you just described was the SOL expiring. It had nothing to do with the speedy trial act.
But without any cause to dismiss the case, you can be tried and convicted well after the SOL runs, provided you were charged prior. The STA provides the cause.
You're right, the judges don't. The judge's law clerk(s) do, as should your own lawyer(s). However, please note that not bringing a speedy trial motion is the same thing as waiving that right. The speedy trial right is an asserted right, meaning that you have to actively pursue it. Courts simply don't have the capacity to grant it to everyone, especially since most people waive it anyway.
Judges don't "approve" indictments on the federal level. Indictments (even superseding ones) come from grand juries. Judging by the number of 8th superseding, 9th superseding, and nth superseding (where n has 2 digits) indictments in a number of cases in the literature, this statement would appear to be provably false.
Judges absolutely approve or reject superseding indictments once a defendant has been charged. Whether or not the prosecutor chooses to get a dozen superseding indictments before charging or arraigning a defendant is a very different thing.
But without any cause to dismiss the case, you can be tried and convicted well after the SOL runs, provided you were charged prior. The STA provides the cause.
That's true, but that's not what you're describing. You originally described a prosecutor dismissing charges for some reason, but then not refiling charges before the SOL expires. If the speedy trial right was at issue, the prosecutor would simply ask the defense for a waiver, which the lawyer will usually grant unless there's a reason not to, i.e., client says no or the lawyer is aware the prosecutor has insufficient evidence but given time could acquire it. (The latter will never apply so close to an SOL expiring--if the prosecution doesn't have the evidence after 5/6/7 years, the difference of a few days or weeks won't matter.)
And the top prosecutor in the federal system for a state is called... the "U.S. Attorney".
It's certainly not some random attorney who happens to hold U.S. citizenship.
Not to speak of the murders he paid for, but that were thankfully stopped in the stage where it‘s still only an attempt.
(Long version: he ran a platform where people sold the victims drugs, from which sales he financially profited). Victims who subsequently died.
I assume you think that they would have overdosed from other peoples' drugs anyway, but as I wrote, I don't accept that, so we can probably not discuss this productively.
It's a stretch to say that he caused their deaths because a third party willingly sold them drugs on his platform that they then willingly ingested.
He was involved in their deaths, yes, but he did not cause them.
(Otherwise the sellers would claim, that the marketplace is the real culpit, and they just sold some stuff)
There are certain limits to it, so that totally far-flung causations don't count, but this is not a close call.
People have been buying and OD'ing on opiates for centuries. They could easily have happened without SR.
How would you ever convict a thief if "someone else could have stolen it, had the defendant not been there first" was a valid defense?
You need to look at the concrete situation and in that situation the drugs came via Silk Road.
Although since dying of a drug overdose does not (directly) harm third parties, it's closer to trying to convict the manufacturers/sellers of rope for cases of suicide by hanging.
There are some drugs which can kill you which no one can legally sell.
There are millions of non-drug items someone can sell you which can kill you.
So I think it has nothing to do with whether people died from items sold on the marketplace, but rather that the marketplace as a whole was de facto illegal.
Contrast to OpenBazaar.
> Again, the law doesn't care about "could".
Which is it?
Every single customer could then and can still withdraw cash at an ATM, and then visit down the chain of "guy that knows a guy" until their non-narc bona fides are established, and the psuedoanonymous cash-for-drugs transaction occurs.
He's in prison for life because the War on Drugs principals needed to set up an example as deterrent, because their usual methods of investigation and interdiction were less effective at fighting obfuscated online services, and his was the most popular at the time. The judges went along with it, because they balanced the interests of the government against one guy who is almost definitely a sleazebag, and found that turning the negative PR from the apparent untouchability of Silk Road users into a win by shutting down the system, seizing the Bitcoin, and railroading the operator was fine. Even if they got reversed a few years later, after it was mostly out of the news, that was still an acceptable result. The claim that he tried to hire a hitman for contract murder definitely put a thumb on that balancing test. Without it, you're just tossing someone in prison for starting up a better Craigslist.
From what I know about the case, the prosecution was probably more influenced by politics than justice. If he were market-making for insider trading tips and discreet temporary matchmaking services, instead of drugs, stolen property, prostitution, and murders, he'd still be in business and richer than Croesus. They nailed him with a pseudo-plausible argument and a pressing need to get online black markets out of the mainstream news. It's the same reason Pirate Bay keeps losing domain names, while lesser-known trackers never seem to get the same level of opposition. The first rule of your online black market is to not talk about your online black market. If it gets too popular, it becomes the enforcement target pour encourager les autres.
There's no way in Hell he'd merit a life sentence without the attempted murder claims. Silk Road wasn't intrinsically more criminal than Visa or Mastercard payment clearing services, aside from it not automatically banning merchant accounts suspected of engaging in certain lines of business that are illegal in most jurisdictions. Silk Road was making the War on Drugs actors look like chumps, so they made Dread Pirate Roberts their public enemy number one.
I don't think he deserves the sentence that he got, but I also don't think they're ever going to let him out, because he's back in the news the instant they turn him loose. It'd be nice to believe that the justice system was more about the justice than the system, but I just can't.
But he knowingly fostered the sale of controlled substances, which itself is a crime.
Presumably illegal substances are illegal in part based on risk, so even participating in the transaction you're assuming that risk.
The key word here is "presumably".
I don't think most people intend or want their customers ODing on their product, but it understandably will happen with some given the power of the addiction.
Even still I think where this thread is going is reaching in some respects. Sure people died from the drugs that were sold on the silk road, but from my understanding they wern't sold by Ross directly. Sure it he was getting a profit for the use of the silk road basically being the ebay for illegal stuff, but that to me seems more like organized crime and being a kingpin of sorts.
It is of course an eminently reasonable thing to contend that some non-violent crime can have as much or more on the lives on its victims than violent crime. That's a different conversation though, than "we should change the classification of this act".
Also, what distinction do other market places use to avoid any prosecution, a terms of use agreement?
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
So, are there solid studies on how mortality compares per-capita, per-usage duration?
"Methadone, an opioid analgesic, is used clinically in pain therapy as well as for substitution therapy in opioid addiction. It has a large interindividual variability in response and a narrow therapeutic index. Genetic polymorphisms in genes coding for methadone-metabolizing enzymes, transporter proteins (p-glycoprotein; P-gp), and mu-opioid receptors may explain part of the observed interindividual variation in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of methadone. Cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4 and 2B6 have been identified as the main CYP isoforms involved in methadone metabolism. Methadone is a P-gp substrate, and, although there are inconsistent reports, ABCB1 genetic polymorphisms also contribute slightly to the interindividual variability of methadone kinetics and influence dose requirements. Genetic polymorphism is the cause of high interindividual variability of methadone blood concentrations for a given dose; for example, in order to obtain methadone plasma concentrations of 250 ng/mL, doses of racemic methadone as low as 55 mg/day or as high as 921 mg/day can be required in a 70-kg patient without any co-medication."
Li Y et al; Mol Diagn Ther 12 (2): 109-24 (2008)
Yes. Clearly, that is the single-most important issue in the 2020 presidential election.