alt Hacker NewsYou missed that the "victims" did not exist and were invented (and Ulbricht's defense could have claimed that he was aware of that, and it would only need one juror to find that credible). I'm pointedly asking what a "real" plan is if it involves fictitious people invented by the two govt agents - both of whom (Bridges and Force) subsequently went to prison for corruption. If the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charges hadn't been dropped, cross-examining Bridges and Force likely would have destroyed the prosecution case (for conspiracy to commit murder).
UPDATE: apparently I'm wrong that "factual impossibility" is not a defense [0]. But Bridges and Force's criminal behavior tainted the prosecution case on this charge. Presumably why the prosecution made sure those two agents were not mentioned in the trial.
[0]: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/62360/can-you-charge...
> You missed that the "victims" did not exist and were invented (and Ulbricht's defense could have claimed that he was aware of that, and it would only need one juror to find that credible).
But now we're playing legal tricks here. The real question would be if Ulbricht was willing to have people killed or not, regardless of what the defense can claim.
EDIT: just to be clear. Legally, I think it makes a big difference if someone decides to have someone else killed, tries to hire an hitman and that hitman turns out to be a policeman in disguise vs a policeman in disguise telling you "there are people doing something that is bad for you, should I kill them?". And it is perfectly right that the second case is crossing a line. But form a moral perspective, if someone answers "yes" in the second case, that still tells us a lot about that person, regardless of whether those people existed or not. The important thing is that those people were real in this person's mind.