Miami: Potential Padilla jurors admit bias

[seafan]

Lovely.


From the LA Times: (registration req'd)

April 18, 2007

MIAMI — It became clear in the second day of jury selection in the Jose Padilla terrorism trial just how raw the wounds of Sept. 11 remained in this city of immigrants and military veterans.
Many summoned for jury duty for a trial that is expected to last until August conceded during voir dire — the process to determine their suitability as jurors — that they could not be fair and impartial.

The prospective jurors' responses came after a third of the 550 initially questioned by mail months ago were dismissed for bias in their written responses.
More than half of the 36 quizzed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke this week failed to clear the second of several hurdles to serving on the jury.
Prospective jurors, including a Latino highway surveyor, an African American nurse, a Jewish advertising accountant and a divorced white electrician, have repeatedly invoked the images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as the basis for their inability to judge Muslims fairly.

.....

The government has never alleged that Padilla, or co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun or Kifah Wael Jayyousi, were in any way involved in the Sept. 11 hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a fiery crash in Pennsylvania.

...

A single mother who works at a medical office was asked whether she considered Muslims disproportionately prone to violence. She replied: "Before Sept. 11, I would have said no. But from what I've heard since then on the news, I'd say yes."
Two women whom Cooke questioned Tuesday were among the most impassioned in expressing their views that the defendants weren't entitled to the rights they have in U.S. federal court.

.....

Referring to Padilla, called an enemy combatant by President Bush after his May 2002 arrest and held 3 1/2 years without charges in a military brig, the businesswoman said that "he should still be there."

.....


Cooke has cautioned the four government prosecutors not to try to implicate Padilla in what happened on 9/11.

"Any idea, through inference or otherwise, that these defendants are connected to 9/11 is not available to the government in this case," Cooke said before jury selection, when a defense lawyer complained of a recent government notification that expert witnesses would be called to talk about the group's hand in the terrorist attacks.
Prosecutor Brian Frazier observed at the start of jury selection that because of the nature of the case and Padilla's alleged associations, the jurors were "going to hear the word 'terrorist' in this case," as well as the infamous date of Sept. 11.

And because of the constant drumbeat from the Bush Administration in linking 9-11 and Iraq, and the shameful cheerleading by the media for the past six years since, an American citizen has been stripped of his rights to habeas corpus, labeled an enemy combatant, held for years without charges, claims he has been tortured, a prospective jury is virtually impossible to seat in this farce of a trial.

And Mr. Padilla's judge is on record stating that the prosecution's case is "light on facts".



From the Miami Herald, April 15, 2007:

The case, described as ''Padilla lite'' because it lacks the dirty-bomb allegation, has not been as sensational as first envisioned by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Even U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who will preside over the trial, has been less than impressed. Last summer, she dismissed one charge, citing a violation of all three defendants' constitutional rights.

Cooke even went so far as to say the prosecution's case was ``light on facts.''
But the decision by the judge, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Bush in 2003, was overturned on appeal.

That's not to say the government hasn't scored some pretrial legal victories. One example: Cooke's recent ruling that Padilla is competent to stand trial, rejecting his lawyers' claim that he could not help in his defense because he was tortured in military detention.
Much of the government's case is built upon thousands of classified wiretaps of phone conversations among members of the alleged North American terrorist cell with links to the Fort Lauderdale area. The time frame: October 1993 to November 2001.

In the indictment, Hassoun, suspected of being the ringleader, and Jayyousi are accused of recruiting mujahedin fighters such as Padilla and raising funds for radical Islamic causes in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Egypt.
But the charges make no mention of any specific attacks, suggesting that the government's case might come down to one of guilt by association.

Hassoun befriended Padilla when they attended the Masjid Al-Imam mosque in Fort Lauderdale during the 1990s. In 1998, Padilla left South Florida for Egypt, where he got married and had two children but remained in contact with Hassoun.
According to the indictment, Padilla traveled overseas to receive training for ''violent jihad.'' On July 24, 2000, Padilla is alleged to have filled out a ''Mujahadeen Data Form'' in preparation for training with al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

..(a "Mujahadeen Data Form"?)


Interestingly, all of this was going on during the same time period in December, 2001, that Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode, Larry Franklin, Nicolo Pollari, Antonio Martino were meeting in Rome to "gather evidence" of Iraq's intent to acquire yellowcake from Niger....

According to court records, the FBI received Padilla's mujahedin application from a covert CIA officer, who obtained it from an Afghan national in December 2001, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
The Afghan told the CIA officer stationed in Kandahar that he had found it along with other mujahedin forms in an abandoned al Qaeda safe house.

Padilla's alleged al Qaeda form will be central to the government's case. Prosecutors plan to put the CIA officer on the witness stand.
He will use a disguise -- a wig, eyeglasses and facial hair -- to protect his identity. Padilla's defense lawyers have said the CIA officer's appearance is like putting a ''ghost'' on the stand.

Even though the form appears to link Padilla to al Qaeda, it is unclear exactly how the former Chicago gang member was recruited into the terrorist group and what he specifically did to wage jihad.

So, it really looks as if the Bush Administration is hell bent on keeping Padilla in prison forever. It just 'wouldn't be prudent' to have widespread scrutiny on the administration's actions involving Padilla's case.


There is a tremendous amount at stake for the administration on the outcome of the Padilla verdict.

Interestingly, law experts are now saying that regardless of the outcome, Padilla may never be released from incarceration as long as Bush has anything to do with it:

WASHINGTON — Accused al-Qaida agent Jose Padilla could be thrown back in a military brig even if he's acquitted or gets a light sentence in his civilian criminal trial beginning this week, experts say.
All President Bush would have to do is sign papers again branding him an "enemy combatant," and Padilla would be back behind bars.


Bush did that in 2002, when the Brooklyn-born terror suspect was stripped of his constitutional rights and held in a Navy jail for three years without charges.
"There is nothing stopping the president from doing it," said Gary Solis, a former Marine prosecutor who teaches law at Georgetown University. "If he were acquitted, he's not necessarily going anywhere."
And if Padilla is returned to military custody, he could be held indefinitely until the end of the war on terror, Solis said.


"What restrains the government from reclassifying Padilla as an enemy combatant? I don't know of anything," agreed Karen Greenberg, an expert on terrorism law at New York University. .....
Even though his arrest was trumpeted as the capture of a terrorist intent on wreaking death and destruction in the U.S., he isn't facing justice for plotting a catastrophe here.

.....

Despite the unrelated charges he faces in the federal trial, officials still believe he worked for Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and top lieutenant Abu Zubaydah. They didn't charge him with the dirty bomb plot because witnesses were "not available," though Mohammed and Zubaydah are in U.S. hands.


Returning Padilla to military custody would spark a "brand-new constitutional firestorm," predicted Neal Sonnett, chairman of the American Bar Association's enemy combatants task force.
Critics also say the Military Commissions Act of 2006 ensures Bush can designate U.S. citizens — not just foreigners — as enemy combatants who can't challenge their detention.

So, how does that "blank check" for Bush look now to those members of Congress who voted for it in 2002, I wonder.

Byrd Asks Senate to Deny Bush Blank Check, October 4, 2002.


In one of his most impassioned speeches during his 50 years in Congress, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., pleaded with fellow senators on Thursday not to issue a “blank check” to President George W. Bush.
“The president is using the Oval Office as a bully pulpit to sound the call to arms. But it is from Capitol Hill that such orders must flow. The people, through their elected representatives, must make that decision,” Byrd said.

Quoting Roman historian Titus Livius, Byrd called Bush “blind and improvident....

“As sure as the sun rises in the east, we are embarking on a course of action with regard to Iraq that, in its haste, is both blind and improvident. We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert conflict.”

The “bellicose stance” taken in Bush’s resolution, sent to the Senate 33 days before Election Day, is motivated by campaign politics, Byrd argu

We and our children will be repairing damage done to humankind and the rule of law by this ONE MAN for the remainder of our lives.