> even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped
Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent of it. In fact, reading the chat logs makes his guilt pretty clear. Of course, because the whole operation was a scam, there's little he could have been convicted of. Yet just because the murder was never carried out doesn't mean he didn't intend to have someone assassinated. In my book, paying someone money to kill another person is definitely grounds for imprisonment.
That happens all the time, when people confess to a charge ahead of time, instead of proceeding to a trial. Remember that the purpose of the trial is to find out whether they are guilty when there is a factual dispute about that question. Here, I suppose the existence of a factual dispute is itself disputed: does that need to go to a jury, or is it enough that the trial judge and the appeal court looked at the record and decided there wasn't a dispute?
Certainly not always. Sometimes a person will confess a crime under immunity, and not be charged. Ulbricht didn't confess the murder for hire formally, and he wasn't charged with it. The controversy is that his role in it was used to influence the sentencing decision for a different crime.
No. I'm talking more from an ethical standpoint. I think someone who hires contract killers deserves to go to prison. I also think people shouldn't be convicted for charges that were not proven in court. As I said before, in Ross' case, the charge was dropped.
Ah that's not strictly true. I believe Scotland is the only place in the world I am aware of where there is Innocent, unproven, and Guilty verdicts. I believe in reality a not guilty verdict is, we didn't have the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt this person committed the crime. Finding someone not guilty is a legal term. Considering whether someone is innocent or not is more of a moral/factual term.
Not proven in Scotland and not guilty in almost every other country are the equivalent. Innocent is the outlier verdict in Scotland that the rest of the world doesn't have.
That's also a description of the "not guilty" verdict. Guilty is "beyond a reasonable doubt", and "not guilty" is those circumstances that are not Guilty.
> even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped
Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent of it. In fact, reading the chat logs makes his guilt pretty clear. Of course, because the whole operation was a scam, there's little he could have been convicted of. Yet just because the murder was never carried out doesn't mean he didn't intend to have someone assassinated. In my book, paying someone money to kill another person is definitely grounds for imprisonment.