On Thursday, June 28, the US Supreme Court rejected a motion to review a life sentence for the founder of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, who worked with bitcoin on the darknet market. This news has already stirred not only the supporters of Ross, but also many advocates of online privacy, writes CCN.
According to the administrators of the Twitter-channel Free_Ross, the failure to consider the petition creates a precedent for other cases of legal claims from the defenders of the right to privacy in the network.
The publication reminds that on January 23, 2018, one of the main experts on the work of the Supreme Court, Tom Goldstein, in his rating "The petition of the day" in SCOTUSblog called the Ulbricht case against the United States one of the most likely candidates to be included in the hearing.
Currently, Ulbricht, who, under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, managing in site Silk Road in DarkNet , that existed in 2011-2013, is serving a double life imprisonment without the right to early release for a number of crimes, including money laundering and drug trafficking.
The verdict was made in May 2015, but, according to many observers, was unexpectedly tough: as the judge then stated, he thereby wanted to send a message to other darknet operators. All this time, lawyers Ulbricht argue that the progress of the investigation and the trial were accompanied by "huge corruption, abuse of power and violation of laws."
For example, in the sentencing Ulbricht was found guilty of ordering a series of murders that had never been committed. In court, it has not been proven that these crimes took place, but this did not affect the judge's determination.
The lawyers of the founder of Silk Road, referring to the Fourth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution, consider all of the above to collect information about his Internet traffic without the necessary warrant or a good reason for detention, concealment of key evidence and violation of the right to a fair trial.
The fact that Ross Ulbricht intends to challenge his verdict in the Supreme Court of the United States, it became known in December 2017. Earlier, he refused claims to millions of dollars in the bitcoins arrested by the US authorities.