The Wired article references him admitting to the undercover agent, when attempting to do a new murder-for-hire, that he had done it previously.
I personally think he got a fair trial, and I'm a believer that even those charged with the worst of crimes deserves every opportunity to defend themselves. Certainly, the government came after him hard, to make an example out of him, but I don't think it reached a point of him not getting a fair trial. He wanted to play hardball, so they played it.
On the "experts testify" issue, he was in a Catch-22, and I think his legal defense team (which were well-paid, experienced people, its not like he got stuck with a junior public defender) made a tactical choice. If he wanted to claim that the info on the servers was privileged, then you have to admit its your property (you cant' have privilege otherwise). His defense team didn't want him to admit the servers were his, so he could continue with the theme of it was some "other" DPR, but then they can't claim that info on them is privileged if you won't admit they are yours. It was a risk they took, if he'd come out and said "ya, the servers are mine, this whole thing is mine, but I don't have anything do do with drugs being sold anymore then the Craiglist owners do, prove it" then the trial would have played out very differently. They chose the other approach, but they can't expect to have their cake and eat it too. Once the prosecution knew that was the defense's plan and Ross wasn't going to testify, then they knew tactically how to come after him, and they had a lot of evidence waiting to go.
I think the only other witness the defense raised a fuss about not being able to call was the computer expert from Columbia, and his testimony denied only because they didn't disclose him as a potential witness to the prosecution. You don't get to "ambush by witness" in a criminal trial. I don't think that guy's proposed testimony about technical Linux kernel issues were particularly relevant, but who knows, they could still appeal on that issue.
On the investigation side, I think there are things that were pretty iffy and bordering on entrapment (which probably has a lot to do with why they didn't pursue the murder-for-hire charges), but the trial itself gave him full opportunity, he had a well-funded defense, and every opportunity to present his side. He had bad facts though, and a prosecution case that was pretty air-tight on the charges they wanted to make stick. I'm a bit surprised the judge hit him with the max sentence, but it was still within sentencing range, and he and his defense team knew the risks. Given the guy's intelligence and resources, I'm still shocked he stayed in the U.S. That arrogance was ultimately his downfall. If he'd gone to a different country , imo, they would never have brought him down, extraditing someone on those types of facts would be tough. Staying in a jurisdiction like the U..S. where the things he was charged with are clearly crimes, that was a risky move, and he paid for it.
People want to jump to his defense because they paint him as this modern-day libertarian Robin Hood, who was sticking it to "The Man", but that doesn't change that hiring people to kill others is a crime, aiding and abetting the sale of Schedule 1 narcotics is a crime, profiting from the sale of narcotics is a crime, etc. He's no freedom fighter, he didn't get rail-roaded, he played a high-stakes game and lost, but it was his choice to play it. If he'd personally killed those people he thought he was having killed by others, I think people would have a lot less romanticized view of what he really is.
I'll be the first to admit I'm sympathetic for the guy because of my hatred for the war on drugs. He was, at least at first, trying to prove a point with Silk Road. If he's guilty of murder-for-hire, then maybe he failed at his mission, but I think that was at least his intent. For the record, I never bought anything on Silk Road, but I did read through the forum and read his posts. He's an interesting guy (albeit a bit arrogant- he mentioned a few times that he didn't think he could get caught) and a lot of what he said, publicly at least, paints him as a crusader. He liked the money too, and referenced that he did buy some luxuries, but mostly he lived modestly. Unfortunately, he overplayed his hand and things got to big for him to handle. I personally don't think it would have mattered where in the world he went though. With this type of case they would have pulled out all the stops to get him, or just rendered him.
He was entrapped on the murder-for-hire, so who knows if he would have carried this out on his own, if not prompted. It was Force that offered these services. Who knows if he would have thought he had the capability to have this carried out. For all we know he might have erased the site from existence and disappeared to avoid getting caught. This new trend with DHS and the FBI to entrap potential would-be killers, and claim that because the have the potential to commit crimes that they would isn't right. I also have questions regarding the screens shots of the chat conversations. We know agent Force is corrupt, so I have questions about any of his testimony or evidence that he could have easily fabricated.
I disagree with the judge allowing the prosecutors to paint him as a murder-for-hire gangster to the jury without the charging him. That taints his character from the beginning. If they have the evidence to prove it, then they should have charged him with that crime from the beginning. Otherwise, it shouldn't have been brought up in this trial, or at least not in front of the jury. That alone makes the trial unfair since it severely damages his character.
The judge's ties to Chuck Schumer seem like a massive conflict of interest to me. If she's buddies with the guy that lead the charge against the Silk Road, how could she possibly be unbiased? She's a crusader in her own right for the war on drugs.
Also it wasn't fair to deny the defense the opportunity to point the finger at Karples. They have strong evidence to suggest that, at least at some point, Karples was running the site. Since they declined to claim the server, seems like this was basically their entire defense. The judge seemed to think it was reasonable at first, but then flip-flopped had the initial testimony about this struck from the record. I'd at least like to know if she had a legitimate reason, or if she was just throwing a bone to her buddies on the prosecution, which is what it looks like.
Also, given that Force was under investigation for stealing Bitcoins, corruption, etc, I think the jury had a right to know that. Isn't part of poking a whole in the prosecution's case being able to discredit bad or corrupt witnesses?
On the expert testimony side of things, I get what you are saying. Seems like, given the evidence against they already had against Ross, it would have made more sense to claim the server and stick the with the fruit from a forbidden tree defense. I'd love to know Dratel's reasoning for this decision. Also, I believe that one of their experts was going to talk about how the evidence was handled wasn't he? That would be relevant it seems... However, there is the allegation that the evidence (Ross's computer) may have been mishandled and one of their experts wanted to testify about that.
The sentencing was absolutely extreme in this case. Rapists and actual murders get less time. Even if he is guilty of the murder-for-hire charge, then he should get a long prison sentence, but should be given the chance to get out before he dies. But he wasn't convicted of murder-for-hire, he was convicted of conspiracy, kingpin, facilitating the sale of drugs, etc., so to sentence him based on a charge the prosecutors didn't file doesn't seem fair.
