Back in the day, life in prison was a sentence handed out to murderers, rapists, and repeat violent offenders.
Today, life in prison is seen as a perfectly appropriate sentence for putting together willing buyers and willing sellers of certain drugs– a malum prohibitum crime in which there are no victims. Unless, of course, you are one of those government apparatchiks who believe that helping people do things considered unhealthy is the worst sort of crime imaginable:
Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of Silk Road, has been sentenced to life in prison for running the underground online drug bazaar, signaling the government’s seriousness in combating Internet crime.
The punishment is a heavy price to pay for the 31-year-old, who had pleaded with the judge to spare him his old age and “leave a small light at the end of the tunnel.”
The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest followed an emotional three-hour hearing. Judge Forrest said she spent more than 100 hours grappling with the appropriate sentence, calling the decision “very, very difficult.”
But ultimately, she gave Mr. Ulbricht the harshest sentence allowed under the law, saying Silk Road was “an assault on the public health of our communities” by making it easy for people around the world to buy illegal drugs.
It ought to be even easier, and it ought to be far cheaper. Illegal drugs are expensive not because of their innate worth, but because they are illegal. What is an assault on the public health of our communities is imprisoning non-violent citizens in dangerous and awful places for the “crime” of what the government considers self harm.
Tobacco, alcohol, sugar, flour, salt and junk food can also be seen as bad for people’s health, and I see no moral distinction between imprisoning buyers and sellers of such things and buyers and sellers of marijuana, cocaine, or heroin.
(OK, maybe that was a poor analogy. I forgot that selling cigarettes can get you killed by police.)
MORE: Glenn Reynolds weighs in:
IF HE’D BEEN A CHILD MOLESTER, HE’D HAVE GOTTEN LESS TIME. IF HE’D BEEN AL SHARPTON, HE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED.
Relativism has become so relative that no wonder the left avoids it.
Comments
12 responses to “Life in prison?”
I am surprised by the harshness of this sentence, but it seems to me that this guy was a fool. He lived in San Francisco and operated his business there. How could someone as well-educated and computer-savvy as this guy not realized that he was going to get caught?
Looks to me as if the man was not only a fool, but a maniacally egotistical asshole. But the point is, he got a LIFE sentence not for being a fool or a jerk, but for facilitating drug purchases, which are victimless crimes (to my mind).
A recent Wired magazine article described how he ordered a former underling to be killed. The WSJ article doesn’t say if that was one of the charges he was found guilty of, however.
FTR, I agree that drugs should be legal.
If I didn’t make it clear, Yes, I think this sentence is outrageous as well.
He was not convicted of ordering anyone killed, and if he had been (or ever is) I would of course support a severe sentence. That’s a completely different crime, and precisely what severe sentences are meant to punish.
Interestingly, it also looks like he had a partner in the DEA.
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/
I’m not surprised.
July 1, pot becomes legal in Oregon. You can grow it yourself, and legally posses it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Ballot_Measure_91_%282014%29
Legal pot is reviving dying fishing villages in Washington, with the blessing of the local sheriff and police chief!
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2015/04/02/doings-around-town/#more-20496
I wonder if the feds will start prosecuting 75 y/o grannies in Cottage Grove. With the usual Republican President they just might. Rand Paul doesn’t have a chance in hell of getting nominated, which is sad.
Silk Road is getting punished but not for drugs. It is getting punished for bypassing government currency.
To focus on the drugs is to be misled.
I agree that bypassing government currency is the major reason he was singled out, but if you look at the punishments, he could not have gotten life in prison for that.
From the FBI press release:
“ULBRICHT, 30, of San Francisco, California, was found guilty of: one count of distributing narcotics, one count of distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, and one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics, each of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years; one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison; one of count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years; and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.”
Money laundering = 20 years maximum.
Drugs = three possible life sentences!
Well, they are using one “crime” to punish him for the most important crime.
Oklahoma may be the worst state to get busted for marijuana possession. Oklahoma law has long allowed judges to sentence people to life imprisonment for sale of small amounts of marijuana. The Oklahoma legislature voted in 2011 by a lopsided margin of 119 to 20 to toughen the penalties and require longer minimum sentences in prison for possession of pot. Several other southern states have similar laws.
Interesting comment:
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/53075287
Excerpt:
HSBC was convicted of laundering something like $2 billion in drug cartel money – but they got a fine, not a single person involved got a sentence. So why couldn’t the Silk Road founder get a “deferred prosecution agreement”?
Simple: he was taking money away from the crooks on Wall Street, so the crooks on Wall Street called up their people at the DEA and FBI and said, get this guy, or you are off the payroll. And the corrupt money-grubbing clowns at the FBI and DEA complied with orders. In the hope of some kind of position with the company, post-retirement.