NYT editorial: The Padilla Conviction

[DeepModem Mom]

The Padilla Conviction
Published: August 17, 2007

It is hard to disagree with the jury’s guilty verdict against Jose Padilla, the accused, but never formally charged, dirty bomber. But it would be a mistake to see it as a vindication for the Bush administration’s serial abuse of the American legal system in the name of fighting terrorism.

On the way to this verdict, the government repeatedly trampled on the Constitution, and its prosecution of Mr. Padilla was so cynical and inept that the crime he was convicted of — conspiracy to commit terrorism overseas — bears no relation to the ambitious plot to wreak mass destruction inside the United States, which the Justice Department first loudly proclaimed. Even with the guilty verdict, this conviction remains a shining example of how not to prosecute terrorism cases.

When Mr. Padilla was arrested in 2002, the government said he was an Al Qaeda operative who had plotted to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb inside the United States. Mr. Padilla, who is an American citizen, should have been charged as a criminal and put on trial in a civilian court. Instead, President Bush declared him an “enemy combatant” and kept him in a Navy brig for more than three years....

***

The administration is already claiming victory, but the result in Mr. Padilla’s case is in many ways a mess. He will likely never be brought to trial on the dirty-bomb plot, a much publicized charge that cries out for resolution. (In another move worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the government is holding another prisoner in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed, because he was accused of conspiring with Mr. Padilla in the dirty-bomb plot for which Mr. Padilla was never charged.) There is also the danger that Mr. Padilla’s conviction will be reversed on appeal because of his alleged mistreatment before trial. In hailing the verdict yesterday, a White House spokesman thanked the jury for “upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all.” It is a remarkable statement, since the administration did everything it could to keep Mr. Padilla away from a jury and deny him impartial justice.

After all that, there was still some good news yesterday: a would-be terrorist will be going to jail. And the Bush administration was forced, grudgingly and only at the very end, to provide him with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/opinion/17fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Solly Mack]

1. Actually, it's hard to agree with the verdict considering how it came about

What some folks call technicalities I call rights..and if the process, as in due process, is abused en route to a verdict, then the guilty verdict is as bogus as the "justice" and "due process" involved getting to it



There is no good news in anyone going to jail under the conditions and circumstances that gained Padilla a guilty verdict.

The thinking that if someone is (considered) bad then it's good they go to jail even with the criminal actions of the government is warped - incredibly warped.

They hate the means but like the results?

Sick

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. What rights are these?

>>And the Bush administration was forced, grudgingly and only at the very end, to provide him with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.>>

The close is a bit cryptic; doesn't seem to match up with anything in the editorial.

[txaslftist]

3. Absurd.

"the Bush administration was forced, grudgingly and only at the very end, to provide him with the rights provided by the constitution..."

No they weren't. The 8th Amendment is supposed to prevent cruel and unusual punishment. He was tortured and held in isolation for something like 3 years. There's a Constitutional Right he wasn't provided.

The Fourth Amendment provides for a person not to be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. He was unreasonably held without counsel and in solitary confinement, tortured, abused, and various other things because of his applying to fight in foreign wars between foreign elements. He was unreasonably seized.

The Fifth Amendment provides for due process of law. The countless ways his due process rights were violated could fill a book.

The Sixth Amendment provides for a speedy and public trial. He sat in a naval brig and various other torture sites for 4+ years. Nothing speedy about that unless you happen to be a glacier or continent shifting. The 6th also provides for the right of counsel. He was denied that for many years.

The Administration shredded the constitution, pissed on it, burned to ashes and told the rest of us to fuck off, and we took it. We did nothing.

And now they slap a bandaid on this case in the form of a conviction for a nothing crime, Padilla's about to get life in prison, and the New Idiot Times says this vindicates the constitution?

What an tragic joke.

The Founders of our Nation are looking down the centuries at us and they must be wondering why they bothered to have a revolution in the first place. What a disappointment this nation must be.

When asked what form of government we were forming, a Republic or a Democracy, Ben Franklin said words to the effect of: "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Well, we didn't keep it. We pissed it away for a queer Texas cowboy and his pack of corrupt pals.

[0007]

4. A strange twist is why did Attroney John Ashcroft go to Russia

and hold a press conference to announce that Jose Padilla had been arrested?

In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, forensic psychiatrist Dr.
Angela Hegarty speaks for the first time about her experience interviewing
Jose Padilla for 22 hours to determine the state of his mental health.
Padilla is the U.S. citizen who was classified by President Bush as an enemy
combatant and held in extreme isolation at a naval brig in South Carolina
for over three-and-a-half years.
"What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human
being's mind," said Dr. Hegarty. " personality was deconstructed
and reformed." She said the effects of the extreme isolation on Padilla are
consistent with brain damage. "I don't know if he's guilty or not of the
charges that they brought against him," said Dr. Hegarty. "But, already -
before he was ever found guilty - he's paid a tremendous price for his trip
to the Middle East."