The Tragedy of the Commons in the Courtroom

As many who follow websites like mises.org already know, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for running a dark web drug marketplace known as Silk Road under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts. After receiving his sentence – a deliberately harsh ruling for a man barely in his thirties – Ulbricht’s defense team began to work on his appeal. On May 31, Ulbricht lost the appeal, meaning that his life sentence will stand.
To libertarians, this is a tragedy. Even for many supporters of the Drug War or at least some regulation of narcotics, Ulbricht’s punishment was far from proportionate to the crime. But the consequences of Ulbricht’s ruling and the underlying problems with our justice system that allowed it do not end there. The Drug War has created an environment for our justice system that frequently places people in a position where they are pressured to go to jail, even if they’re innocent, for fear of suffering an even greater sentence if they choose to fight for their freedom, and Ulbricht will now serve as the go-to example for defense attorney’s warning clients to avoid going to jury trial at all costs.
The Justice System as a Public Good Because the government holds a monopoly on the justice system in the United States, courtrooms are treated as public goods. For public goods, costs are socialized, so there is no individual cost to using this resource. From the perspective of the criminals, of course, this seems like a no-brainer – a defendant is hardly going to pay the cost of his own conviction. But the socialized costs of courtrooms remove the incentive to economize for two specific groups of people: legislators and police officers.

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on June 22, 2017.