alt Hacker NewsSeriously, that was pretty blatant "he was one of the good guys like me and so the law shouldn't really punish him, not like one of those other people with different value that should be punished to the full extent."
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I mean there's a legal concept of motivation. A murder is sentenced very differently if it's premeditated, or not.
The idea of looking at someone's motivations to determine their sentencing is critical to our legal system - otherwise important defences like the "Battered Wife Defence" wouldn't work.
I think most of us can also see a difference between a poor person stealing some gloves to stay warm in the winter and a rich person stealing those same gloves for the thrill. The only difference here is you don't like the fact that Ulbricht's motivations were more high minded than your average crack pusher (cough CIA cough) - the judge didn't either - in fact he sentenced him harder for it to make an example of him.
Not at all. My point was actually:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42792552