The murder-for-hire was brought up in this trial since they are sentence modifiers for the charges he was facing. The base charges he faced would lead to X years in jail (IIRC; 15-25 if served concurrently) but many of the charges can be modified leading to X+Y years in jail where Y depends on things like attempts at violence.
For all the non-violence fans in the room; Should a heroin dealer who tells his lackies to beat up the competition face a longer sentence than a heroin dealer who initiates no violence? The Federal Sentencing Guidelines think so.
They work on a system of Levels to categorize how bad his crime was:
Narcotics Trafficking over 5kg of Cocaine: Level 30
Narcotics Trafficking by someone who directs violence: +2 Levels
Narcotics Trafficking by someone who promotes their enterprise via mass media: +2 Levels
Narcotics Trafficking by someone who maintains a property to produce drugs: +2 Levels
Etc. etc. So instead of the ~15 year minimum a Level 30 charge would face, Ross is looking at more like a 24 year minimum sentence that corresponds with Level 38 charges.
I think a heroin dealer who is convicted of telling his lackies to beat up the competition should face a longer sentence than a heroin dealer who initiates no violence. Increasing the sentence based on unproven allegations just sounds like bad justice to me.
There is a body of law related to how these types of facts are established, and which types of facts can be determined by a judge vs. which must be put to the jury.
