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Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

Guilty of violating the USC Drug Kingping Act amongst others. Guilty of running an $80 million narcotics ring. Guilty of murder for hire. Guilty under the law as written.

You may believe him innocent by appeal to natural law, or un-prosecutable due to the Fourth Amendment, and on the latter you may be right. But from a moral standpoint, "guilty" is definitely the right word.

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Ah, guilty of murder for hire - even though there are no charges, just an indictment? So you subscribe to guilty until proven innocent?

In that case, you, sir, are a child molester, until you prove to me that you are not.

People are well within their right to believe he is guilty without waiting for a trial. People are well within their right to continue to believe he is guilty even if he is found not guilty - the standards of evidence and requirements to find someone guilty in a court of law are on purpose stringent on the basis that it is worse to imprison someone unjustly than let some criminals go free.

There's a vast gap from believing someone is guilty without waiting for a trial, to advocating the repeal of the rule of law.

As for your statement unless someone has presented evidence and accusations founded in something more than thin air, your example is not in any way equivalent.

But the evidence and accusations are founded on nothing more than thin air until they are proven in a court of law. If we presume guilt until innocence - why even bother with a criminal justice system? Should we just revert to stoning people on the presumption of guilt?

While, yes, folks are free to assume guilt of others, it's an abominable thing to do, as all it does is play straight into the hands of those who would control criminal justice through their media mouthpieces.

It makes you no better than a lynch mob.

No, they're based upon a detailed explanation of the evidence of the state, given to a Grand Jury, who determines whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. That document is available publicly as an indictment.

Some indictments are bogus, some are solid. This one is solid. Also, since we're not lynching anybody that makes us at least slightly better than a lynch mob.

(P.S. we need a law like Godwin's for lynch mob references.)

> If we presume guilt until innocence - why even bother with a criminal justice system?

Someone believing he is guilty outside a court of law does not cause him to get thrown in prison. That is why we bother with a criminal justice system, with specific standards.

> it's an abominable thing to do

It's the human thing to do. We all do it. You too, no matter how much you may want to pretend you don't judge. It is a fine thing to try to withhold judgement, but we are not even capable of fully preventing it.

In fact, you are expressing a great deal of judgement about people on the basis of lack of evidence in this very thread:

> It makes you no better than a lynch mob.

If you seriously don't see the difference between holding a belief, without making any statement about how certain you are that it is correct, and going out with the intent of subjecting someone to violence on the basis of that belief, then you seriously need to think through your thought process.

Of course I see the difference - but I also see the causal link that leads from one to the other, all too easily.

I see a person who needs to study crowd dynamics and lynch mobs themselves if you think there's that strong of a causal link.

An indictment is handed down by a grand jury of ordinary people based on the presentation of facts. It's not just an accusation lobbed on the internet. Court systems should presume innocent until guilt is proven, but bystanders on the internet are totally allowed to speculate based on their gut feelings.

In most jurisdictions the prosecutor entirely controls whether someone is indicted. The prosecutor has the sole ability to present fact and evidence to the grand jury. There is no defense attorney allowed to speak. Thus the common saying amoung prosecutors that they could "indict a ham sandwich for the murder of a pig."

But while the act of being indicted means very little the evidence it forces the prosecution to produce is essential to the defendant.

The documentation produced by the indictment contains testimony, evidence, and large portions of the investigation. It's almost always the defense's first target of attack. However, in this case, it appears very solid for the prosecution.

If I were Ulbricht, I would hammer at the potential Fourth Amendment violation. It is still unclear how the FBI located and imaged Silk Road's servers.

He's put filed motions, but his lawyers never did the investigatory legwork needed to win. Winning such a motion requires a very tight focus on the particularities of the case, and so one can see the smallest of violations, like tiny pinpricks of sun through a brick wall. Then you take one of these pinpricks, and you turn it into a defense.

I would ask, in no particular order:

How exactly did the the FBI get the images of the Silk Road servers?

What is the timeline of the various events in the investigation leading up to Ubricht's arrest?

Did the gmail screen name lead them to the Stack Overflow post which led to the MLAT, which led to the server?

Or did this, as they said later, somehow "expose" the Silk Road IP, and back track the rest of the evidence.

Were any other intelligence agencies involved?

Was any form of backbone collection use to reveal the SR IP?

Mainly I would do this, because if he doesn't win a Fourth Amendment motion to dismiss he's going to jail for a very very long time.

> a child molester

How do you know what a child molester looks like? Have you seen many of them? Are you friends with them? Your comment is highly suspicious, I think we better take you in for questioning.

Are you equally outraged at the banks that have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves...

Far more outraged actually.

hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money?

Billions. And the punishment was a joke.

"But from a moral standpoint, "guilty" is definitely the right word."

Morals are subjective, I realize that you've claimed to be speaking for yourself only; but with a comment such as that I have a hard time believing it.

> Morals are subjective

Can you source that?

There's a field of study called Ethics that would disagree with you.

If you can show some evidence for your claim, that would be an important finding in Ethics; nay, a breakthrough.

>There's a field of study called Ethics that would disagree with you.

And the field called Metaethics with which I am referring to.

Before we go any further I would warn you against assuming anything that I am not saying; I admit to (drastically) simplifying my position in the form of a three word statement - in response to a statement of equal simplicity - but the way in which you are issuing a blanket (and hostile) denial of all of the implications not addressed does not imply that you are reading with the sort of charitable mindset required to update your opinion. With that said;

If you would actually like a source for my claim I would encourage you to read the metaethics sequence on lesswrong(1); many articles of which summarize the discussion (which I am actively avoiding by linking to it instead) presented by both sides regarding this topic.

I believe it would also be worthwhile for you to read the sequence on the difference between belief, and belief in belief (or the map and territory, respectively); for you appear to have an issue understanding that just because you have never heard of this viewpoint that it is novel, when rather it has been covered to a great extent - an extent to which you are clearly ignorant.

Also if you are attempting to conjure an argument around the definition of subjectivity please leave it at the door, it adds nothing to the discussion that couldn't be addressed with simple charitable reading.

1) http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Metaethics_sequence 2) http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_territory_(sequence)

That's a lot to read, so I'll take my time, but I'm always suspicious of arguments that can't be presented succinctly, for I have my own biases.

Would you care to at least elucidate on what you mean by "Morals are subjective" so I know if I even disagree with you?

I don't believe morals come from somewhere or that they can be made universally acceptable. I just think that between two humans, if one does something to the other, then the other will think they're justified in doing that same thing to the one. And when that happens, a third person watching the incident will adapt their behavior (or stay the same) according to the outcome of the interaction. Based on that, and using reason, we can find some core behavioral preferences that we can call morals, that passes the tests of doing and being done to, and of watching others do and reacting by changing one's behavior.

I'm not asking you to summarize the discussion, just give me the meat of the main point in one sentence, if you will. There are no morals because...? Or there can be no morals because...? Or people will never agree because...?

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law

So was Charles Manson before his trial.

I'm saying he's guilty, not a court. It's one man's opinion, not a finding of fact or law.

The fact pattern isn't really in dispute here. Do you really deny he performed the acts of which he is accused?

EDIT due to reply limit: Fine, its your opinion that I'm a child molester, but since you can't enforce it, I have little reason to care.

In the instant case, I am perfectly capable of examining an indictment and concluding as to its likely veracity. It doesn't make the person legally guilty, but in my personal unbinding and most modest opinion, morally so.

Fortunately for us, you're not a judge/prosecutor and fortunately for the accused, "guilty until proven innocent" isn't law but merely a song by Jay-Z.

The options aren't "innocent until proven guilty" or "guilty until proven innocent" - there's also "what is the evidence that I've seen telling me is most likely so far?" Actions based on this should be heavily checked by recognition of your uncertainty, but if you are wanting to come to the correct answer most often, you'll use something closer to that. The purpose of the justice system is not "to come to the correct answer most often", but to determine action (typically severe action) and so needs that check.

Accused of violating the USC Drug Kingping Act amongst others. Accused of running an $80 million narcotics ring. Accused of murder for hire. Accused under the law as written. You may believe him innocent by appeal to actual law/logic (merely accusations at this point), or un-prosecutable due to the Fourth Amendment (see: United States Constitution), and you would be right. But from a moral/legal standpoint, "accused" is definitely the right word.

Fixed it for you.

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