> The court of popular opinion seems to be edging ever so slightly in Ulbricht's favor.
On what planet? Public opinion just shifted in favor of legalizing marijuana in 2013, but support for keeping everything else illegal is overwhelming: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/drug-legalization-p.... Around 10% of people support legalizing cocaine, crack, heroin, meth, or LSD. 80-85% oppose legalizing those drugs.
The transition in political thought doesn't seem to have been toward "people should be able to freely trade in whatever they want." It seems to have been a change in attitude towards the harmfulness of marijuana specifically.