Topic: Ulrbricht's Attorney Demands A Re-Trial (Read 3381 times)

I kind of wonder if the recent publication of the theft by federal agents will come into play in this as well. It casts a pretty big shadow over the whole thing. The thing that bothers me though is that any retrial would be no more fair than the original. 

If the Libertarian Party can win the highest office, then many victims of the "War on Drugs" will be set free.
DPR has a better chance of a retrial...

Yes, but those are real democracies. The system insulates the U.S. president from scandal. Even Nixon wasn't impeached but was allowed to resign instead. He should have been tried for his crimes but instead they built him a presidential library like every other former president.

I agree, the unsound conviction will no doubt stand. But that unsound conviction in itself is an indictment of the poor state of constitutional law in the US.  I think such a scenario as involves SA Force would cause a scandal that would threaten government ministers in most European/Western democracies.

Well, as a legal matter, I don't think the verdict will be overturned. It appears that most of these issues were already argued before the court, and Ulbricht lost. The government appears to have appropriately segregated the evidence from the Baltimore team and kept it out of the trial.

In the light of the revelations concerning SA Force, and his part in this alleged "hit for hire", and your own prejudicial view of it ( from the information that had been leaked about it), I'd say they have at least a reasonable ground to have the Judges decision set aside ( if that applies in the US)

I think in any society that believes the rule of law should trump any prejudice or opinion, he has been unsafely convicted.

This is standard protocol in such a situation, I would think. It happens generally in such trials where someones life is on the line, pretty much. At least with real lawyers and not public defenders.

The issue is, it's not exculpatory simply because it wasn't turned over. If defense knew of these people, it could have interviewed them. Simply there existing interviews made by the government of witnesses who did not testify does make them Brady.


I get that. That should have come through Jencks disclosures, and I expect it did.


Your argument is like saying that if the government were to hack into Verizon without a search warrant and monitor my phone communications that I would not have standing to sue under the 4th amendment because they hacked into a third party's property to illegally do surveillance on my phone line.[/quote]

That doesn't matter at all. If person A writes a letter to person B, who gives it to person C, A has no standing to suppress a warrant of C's home, finding A's letter. Even though the letter contains A's communications.

Under your Verizon argument, the issue is that the government has used Verizon's equipment, has essentially made Verizon a state actor. That's why you have standing. The better analogy, and the more frequent one, is that Verizon is served with a warrant for information about you.

Of course, wiretapping is governed by Title III, but that's a different story, and we're going far afield.



Too little; too late. Ulbricht was able to testify at the suppression hearing and not have that testimony used by the government in its case-in-chief. Why he chose not to acknowledge ownership of the servers, I admit to being as befuddled as the judge. This is like ... law school level criminal procedure.

They are trying to leave no stone untouched. If the interviews are looked into and it is determined that they contain exculpatory evidence then they will win the appeal. The upon information and belief is to protect the attorney from committing perjury.
He fingered Mark - the guy from gox. This happened during the trial, and the defense could argue that the government should have known this information prior to it starting.
I would disagree on this one. They may have been surviving third party property overall, however the information being intercepted was communications between Ross's property and others.

Your argument is like saying that if the government were to hack into Verizon without a search warrant and monitor my phone communications that I would not have standing to sue under the 4th amendment because they hacked into a third party's property to illegally do surveillance on my phone line.   
They were probably on the fence on him testifying or not. By the decision to testify was made it was probably too late to change the motion to suppress evidence (this likely happened mid trial). As you probably noticed, Ross for all intensive purposes did not put on a defense.

The defense also has submitted an amended motion to suppress the evidence, but this time admitting ownership of the servers in question.

Re the bold: a defendant's testimony at a suppression hearing cannot be used by the government in their case-in-chief.

Well, that's not specific. Let me go pull the filing and read it...

Upon reading:

I am not impressed with their motion on the Brady issues. They seem to claim that certain interviews of Ulbricht's friends were not turned over. They claim that these contained exculpatory material, but only under "information and belief." That's law-speak for "weak ass." Defense does not provide any evidence that the material contained therein is exculpatory or material.

They also seem to indicate that SA Der-Yeghiayan fingered an alternative suspect, but again, no details on whether or not this actually happened, was true, or credible. They seem to complain a lot about late disclosures of certain Jencks material (though Jenks material need not be disclosed until after witness testimony, though it is good practice to do so before). Nevertheless, given the defense's horribly shoddy and unprofessional way it handled its expert disclosures, I imagine the government will say the modification of the exhibits was due to the fact that the defense appeared to change its trial strategy midstream.

The points about warrantless surveillance of a Tor exit node are similarly baseless. Ulbricht has no standing to challenge the warrantless surveillance or seizure of third-party property.

Why Mr. Ulbricht chose to deny ownership of the Silk Road servers for the purpose of the suppression motion months ago, though that acknowledgement could not be used against him in trial, is quite frankly, beyond me, and beyond the thinking of greater legal minds than my own. As J. Forrest wrote in her decision denying Ulbricht's very-late expert disclosures: "Lawyers and clients make tactical decisions. The Court cannot always understand why certain decisions are made, nor need it. But when tactical decisions run contrary to established rules and case law, the Court's duty is clear. The Court is duty-bound to apply the law as it exists, not as any party wishes it to be."

There were plenty of legal errors in the case. The specific legal error that was claimed in this specific filing was the fact that some evidence was given to the defense at the last minute and as a result the defense team was not able to put on a proper defense.

Law wise, they have good arguments for a re-trial.

I disagree. While I don't think what he did was smart at all, and if there's any truth to the murder for hire charges (which weren't tried in this court) I think he deserves to rot in prison, if there were any errors of law that prejudiced his defense then he is likely entitled to a new trial.

While I'm not an attorney, I personally think refusing to allow him to exclude the evidence the FBI obtained by illegally hacking the servers because he would not admit that he owned the servers (which would effectively be providing testimony against himself, protected by the 5th Amendement) was probably an error of law and it did prejudice his defense. I haven't read the defense's motion for a new trial but I wouldn't be surprised if it includes something similar to that (but reworded in legalese and probably citing other court cases that agree with that conclusion).

Unlikely. It's not clear what legal error Ulbricht. Being prohibited from testifying to irrelevant crap like the war on drugs is a no-go; the late expert disclosures are not an abuse of discretion. I don't know what other errors are being alleged, besides the Brady violations alleged in OP's link. It's not clear what the nature of the Brady claim is though, from OP's link.

Do you know who Rodger Ver is?
If you do then you should know he has very deep pockets and an even deeper BTC pocket, they don't call him the bitcoin Jesus for nothing.

On what grounds does he appeal {The procedure or the decision being biased}

This is going to cost a pretty penny and it's not going to be a quick verdict, hopefully Rodger Ver will have deep enough pockets to fund a lengthy court appeal.

It would be interresting to see what a successfull appeal would bring to the table.  {Bring the Popcorn fellas, this is going to be a show not to be missed} 

He will get a re trial if his laywer has a good enough reason for one.
If Rodger Ver is still part funding his legal cost then Ulrbricht's laywer will push this all the way as long as he gets paid.

Not sure how things work in the states but couldn't a petition to the court force them to consider a retrial? I mean if there are at least x signatures on the petition then wouldn't they at least have to review the case and decide?
If so, where do we sign up?

According to government laws he's definitely not worthy, at all.

But secretly we all think he is