The violent charges were dropped during the investigation. In effect, he was not judged based on such allegations.

Wikipedia:

> "Ulbricht was charged with money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics,[26][30] and procuring murder.[27] The charge of procuring murder was removed from the indictment[31]"

31 refers to: https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross...

He was judged (but not charged) on these allegations:

>The charge of procuring murder was removed from the indictment[31] although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.

That last part of that sentence has a missing citation. Do you have a source for that?

the quote's from wikipedia

> Ross is condemned to die in prison, not for dealing drugs himself but for a website where others did.

The transcripts aren't just evidence of murder, also of his direct involvement with the drug vendors.

Do you deserve to be in prison for life for dealing drugs, which is a non-violent crime, when rapists get 5.8 years on average?

> Ross is condemned to die in prison, not for dealing drugs himself but for a website where others did.

Maybe they could have asked that question instead of trying to spin this bullshit.

You're comparing an outlier to an average. Of course you're not going to get the answer you want.

Some rapists get multiple life sentences.

The jury found that the state made a convincing argument that he ran an illegal website. The jury was not tasked -- and did not find -- with whether he was guilty of murder for hire. Should the state be able to imprison people for crimes no jury has found them guilty of? I argue no: It is unjust and illegal to sentence someone for allegations without having a jury confirm those crimes.

If the evidence against Ulbricht for murder for hire was good, they would have presented it at trial. The fact is that the prosecutors didn't for some reason and he shouldn't be imprisoned for a crime he hasn't been convicted of.

But he hasn't been imprisoned for ordering murder for hire, something he apparently still awaits a separate charge for in Maryland.

He's been imprisoned for amongst other things, "continuing criminal enterprise", and the transcripts of him talking about hits were presented at trial as at evidence that this involved preparedness to take extreme measures to protect his narcotics suppliers comparable to those of drugs kingpins, and not simply being an innocuous libertarian-inclined middleman who built a web platform people chose to buy and sell drugs on, or even your friendly neighbourhood pot-grower. His defence team had the opportunity to challenge the validity of that evidence in determining his guilt and sentencing for the crimes he was charged for and evidently did not succeed in doing so. The difficulties with targets being mostly anonymous (and in some cases possibly nonexistent) and the pseudonymous entity who offered supposed hitman services probably intending to scam Ulbricht might have made a prosecution for five specific instances of murder too uncertain to complicate the case with, but as evidence of Ulbricht's willingness in principle to purchase murders was it certainly relevant to the continuing criminal enterprise charge he was convicted of.

The only thing the authorities decided they could certainly convict Al Capone for was tax evasion. This did not mean that Al Capone was unfairly treated, it simply meant the tax charge were relatively straightforward to make stick.

Judges are permitted, and encouraged, to take into account other evidence around the individual when sentencing. That's why at hearings, you have so many people parading asking for leniency, saying what a good guy the person is. It makes sense that you'd also take into account the other side of that.