How Much Prison Time Do Sam Bankman-Fried(‘s Ideas) Deserve?

Utilitarianism and “Expected Value”: An Example Must Be Made

The Sam Bankman-Fried trial finished up yesterday, and boy are my arms tired.

Literally. I filled eight notebooks over the four weeks of the trial. I’ve also been getting to the SDNY courthouse as early as 2am some mornings to line up for one of the coveted seats inside the courtroom itself.

I’m still recovering, and glad to be sitting on a couch instead of a church pew right now, but there’s no rest for the wicked. On Twitter and among a few lonely obsessives, at least, the natural next question is already making the feverish rounds:

How long will Sam Bankman-Fried spend in prison?

I haven’t talked to experienced lawyers about this yet, but to get it out of the way, the consensus among serious trial watchers and veterans of financial fraud cases is that the likely range is something like 20-50 years.

That’s out of the total possible maximum for the charges, which adds up to 110 years. Sam is likely facing some very high victim impact numbers, but it’s also likely some parts of the seven-count sentence will be served concurrently. Hopefully we can hone in on something more precise between now and his actual sentencing hearing, which isn’t until March 28 of next year.

But there’s a much more interesting discussion to be had than a dissection of Federal sentencing guidelines.

How much prison time does Sam Bankman-Fried, in a broader and deeper sense, deserve?

Crimes (Because) of the Future

My interest in getting into the courtroom was undeniably a bit ghoulish: what I paid closest attention to through the entire proceeding was Sam’s parents, Joe and Barbara. They’re the real linchpin of this entire affair – of one of the largest financial frauds in American history.

Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried leaving the Southern District of New York Courthouse earlier this week. (David Z. Morris)

That’s not just because of their direct involvement in the scam. They matter because Sam Bankman-Fried’s particular madness was very clearly rooted in a specific and articulated set of ideologies – of ways of thinking about the world, about other human beings, and about justice and ethics, in particular.