In most jurisdictions the prosecutor entirely controls whether someone is indicted. The prosecutor has the sole ability to present fact and evidence to the grand jury. There is no defense attorney allowed to speak. Thus the common saying amoung prosecutors that they could "indict a ham sandwich for the murder of a pig."
But while the act of being indicted means very little the evidence it forces the prosecution to produce is essential to the defendant.
The documentation produced by the indictment contains testimony, evidence, and large portions of the investigation. It's almost always the defense's first target of attack. However, in this case, it appears very solid for the prosecution.
If I were Ulbricht, I would hammer at the potential Fourth Amendment violation. It is still unclear how the FBI located and imaged Silk Road's servers.
He's put filed motions, but his lawyers never did the investigatory legwork needed to win. Winning such a motion requires a very tight focus on the particularities of the case, and so one can see the smallest of violations, like tiny pinpricks of sun through a brick wall. Then you take one of these pinpricks, and you turn it into a defense.
I would ask, in no particular order:
How exactly did the the FBI get the images of the Silk Road servers?
What is the timeline of the various events in the investigation leading up to Ubricht's arrest?
Did the gmail screen name lead them to the Stack Overflow post which led to the MLAT, which led to the server?
Or did this, as they said later, somehow "expose" the Silk Road IP, and back track the rest of the evidence.
Were any other intelligence agencies involved?
Was any form of backbone collection use to reveal the SR IP?
Mainly I would do this, because if he doesn't win a Fourth Amendment motion to dismiss he's going to jail for a very very long time.
But while the act of being indicted means very little the evidence it forces the prosecution to produce is essential to the defendant.
The documentation produced by the indictment contains testimony, evidence, and large portions of the investigation. It's almost always the defense's first target of attack. However, in this case, it appears very solid for the prosecution.
If I were Ulbricht, I would hammer at the potential Fourth Amendment violation. It is still unclear how the FBI located and imaged Silk Road's servers.
He's put filed motions, but his lawyers never did the investigatory legwork needed to win. Winning such a motion requires a very tight focus on the particularities of the case, and so one can see the smallest of violations, like tiny pinpricks of sun through a brick wall. Then you take one of these pinpricks, and you turn it into a defense.
I would ask, in no particular order:
How exactly did the the FBI get the images of the Silk Road servers?
What is the timeline of the various events in the investigation leading up to Ubricht's arrest?
Did the gmail screen name lead them to the Stack Overflow post which led to the MLAT, which led to the server?
Or did this, as they said later, somehow "expose" the Silk Road IP, and back track the rest of the evidence.
Were any other intelligence agencies involved?
Was any form of backbone collection use to reveal the SR IP?
Mainly I would do this, because if he doesn't win a Fourth Amendment motion to dismiss he's going to jail for a very very long time.