In 2011, Ross Ulbricht launched the Silk Road, the first darknet drug market. The Silk Road demonstrated that bitcoin could be successfully used to conduct trade even in the face of government surveillance or censorship.
Unfortunately, Ulbricht was captured and arrested by the FBI in 2013, and ultimately convicted of a number of offences related to operating the Silk Road.
Despite being a non-violent first-time offender, Judge Katherine Forrest sentenced Ulbricht to an extraordinarily harsh sentence: double life imprisonment plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. Ross Ulbricht has already served ten years of this sentence.
Given that:
UIbricht was a first time offender for a non-violent drug offense.
A number of the DEA agents investigating his case were corrupt.
Judge Forrest openly gave him a harsher than normal sentence to send a message.
...his sentence is a gross miscarriage of justice. Ulbricht's friends and family have been advocating for his release ever since, including appealing his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
However, the Supreme Court refused to hear Ulbricht's case. Only a Presidential pardon can free Ulbricht now.