CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

December 28, 2010

AMERICA-BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

Filed under: Anti-Terrorism Lawyer — Tags: , , , , , , , — johntfloyd @ 3:52 am

Promoting Fear of Muslim Terror Government Continues Invasion into Privacy, Civil Rights

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Did you know that the nation’s Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has given $31 billion in grants, including $3.8 billion in 2010 alone, to state and local governments to find and protect Americans from terrorists?

A recent, detailed report in the Washington Post, titled Monitoring America, written by Dana Priest and William H. Arkin, said there is now “a web of 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities.” At least 935 of these agencies were established in the wake of 9/11 Twin Tower attacks in New York City.

A first impression would consider this a good thing: that American law enforcement and intelligence agencies on “on their game” protecting us from unlikely but potentially real terrorists. This “feel good” impression was given buoyancy by several recent FBI sting operations over the last couple of months: one involving a Baltimore construction worker who wanted to blow up a Maryland military recruiting station; another involving a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen who wanted to detonate a car bomb among a large gathering of people attending a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon; and yet another involving a Virginia man arrested for wanting to bomb Washington and metro stations.

Arrests in these sting operations occurred within weeks of each other with all of them being a lead story on network and cable news. While it was disturbing to think that there are potential domestic terrorists in our midst, the FBI made a big media splash with these arrests to reassure Americans that the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies are working diligently to protect us.

But protection at what cost?

Each of these FBI sting operations were born out of what the Post said is a “vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.” This coordinated state, federal, local and military intelligence gathering is known as “Top Secret America.”  The Post conducted an extensive, months-long investigation that was based on nearly 100 interviews and 1,000 documents and the newspaper’s key findings were:

(more…)

December 2, 2010

BOTH TERROR AND AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM ON TRIAL

Filed under: Anti-Terrorism Lawyer — Tags: , , , , , — johntfloyd @ 5:52 pm

Suspected Terrorists should be Transferred to Civilian Custody and Processed in the Criminal Justice System

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was involved in the two bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. To what extent we do not know. The final verdict is mixed on that issue. What we do know is that the New York Times reported Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004 where he was held in one of the CIA’s “secret prisons” for most of the next five years. He was subjected to repeated interrogations and torture during that period before he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay detention facility, according to his attorneys. The Obama administration elected to use the Ghailani case as a test run for its policy that terrorists should be tried in civilian courts rather than before military tribunals (here, here and here). Ghailani was then indicted by a New York federal grand jury on 285 terrorism-related counts, including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and murder in connection with the embassy bombings, and thereafter transferred from military custody to civilian custody.

The Times also reported that last May that U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued two significant pretrial rulings in the Ghailani case which seem to pave the way for future prosecution of suspected terrorists, like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, in civilian courts. The judge denied motions by Ghailani’s attorneys to dismiss the charges against him because he had been subjected to torture while held in the CIA’s “black site” facility and because his right to a speedy trial had been violated by the secret CIA pretrial incarceration. Put simply, torture and long term incarceration in secret prisons without an attorney or due process protections will not stand as a bar to terrorism prosecutions in Judge Kaplan’s court—a significant departure from longstanding constitutional precedents in our system of  justice.

But on the day before the Government was to present its case Judge Kaplan handed down a ruling which, some legal experts believe, damaged the prosecution’s case, according to theTimes. The judge ruled the Government could not use Hussein Abebe as a witness because the CIA learned about him through Ghailani’s tortuous interrogations. Abebe was prepared to testify he had sold Ghailani the explosives used to destroy the embassies. Judge Kaplan, however, tempered his ruling with the observation that even if Ghailani were found not guilty, he could be held indefinitely as an “enemy combatant” until “hostilities between the United States and al Qaeda and Taliban end.”

Last month, following a four-week trial, an anonymous six-man, six-woman jury acquitted Ghailani of 284 counts while finding him guilty of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. He faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life imprisonment on that one count at his sentencing scheduled for January 25, 2011. Lead prosecutor in the case, Preet Bharara, said he will seek a life sentence for Ghailani. Ghailani’s four attorneys presented a defense that their client had been “duped” into assisting in the conspiracy to destroy the embassies and will obviously push for a much lesser sentence because of the jury’s verdict.

(more…)

September 30, 2010

DR AAFIA SIDDIQUI-THE PUNISHMENT DOES NOT FIT THE CRIME

Filed under: Anti-Terrorism Lawyer — Tags: , , , , , — johntfloyd @ 1:27 am

86 Year Federal Sentence Handed to the Gray Lady of Bagram Greater Than Necessary, Cruel and Unusual

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Billy Sinclair

Depending on who you believe, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is either an American-educated Pakistani neuroscientist kidnapped in Pakistan in 2003 and tortured by Americans in the infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan over the next four years or she is a captured al Qaeda terrorist who tried to kill six American military personnel in Ghazni, Afghanistan in 2008. Whichever she is, she did not deserve the 86 year sentence U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman imposed on her on September 23, 2010 because she posed a threat of “recidivism.”

There are a number of fairly certain facts about the bizarre and mysterious Siddiqui case in the public record. The Pakistani-born doctor was given up to the CIA by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed following his March 1, 2003 arrest in Pakistan and subsequent torture by the intelligence agency. The “spook” agency, which had virtually transformed itself into a lawless organization of kidnappings, torture, and secret prisons during the administration of George W. Bush, leaked Siddiqui’s name to the media, including CNN who in April 2003 took the Government-fed bait and linked the doctor to alleged al-Qaeda terrorism activities. Shortly after Siddiqui’s name was made public in connection with terrorism she disappeared with her three children in Karachi, just days after returning there from America. International media outlets quickly reported she had been taken into custody by the FBI, who denied the claim, while her family members were told she had been kidnapped.

A little more than a year after her Karachi disappearance, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Patrick Mueller conducted a news conference during which Mueller called Siddiqui “an al-Qaeda operative and facilitator” who was wanted in connection “with possible terrorist threats against the United States.” However, just days after this May 2004 news conference, the FBI issued an international “information alert” which stated that while the agency had no information connecting Siddiqui “to specific terrorist activities,” the FBI still wanted “to locate and question [her].”

Many people, like Andy Worthington, became convinced that Dr. Siddiqui had been kidnapped—either by Pakistani or American authorities—and was being held in a CIA secret prison somewhere (here, here, and here). By 2007 the Human Rights Watch group released a report calling Siddiqui one of the many “ghost prisoners” being held in secret prisons controlled by the CIA. And by November of that year former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s Supreme Court Justice lftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who was leading an investigation into the detention and disappearance of some 500 Pakistanis, including Siddiqui.

(more…)

December 3, 2009

TRYING KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMAD IN FEDERAL COURT IS NOT END OF WORLD

Filed under: Anti-Terrorism Lawyer — Tags: , , , , — johntfloyd @ 3:25 am

Federal Trials Open to the Public, for Terrorism Cases Support American Constitutional Concepts of Fair Trials, Justice

By Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

While there are many security and legal problems associated with major terrorism trials conducted in federal courts in the United States, Republican critics of the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (“KSM”) in a New York federal court have methodically spread unnecessary fear in order to politicize that decision. What may be good for the country, much less our legal system, does not factor into their conservative political agenda to undermine the Obama presidency at every turn. It’s tantamount to an irresponsible lunatic standing up in a crowded theater and hollering “fire” just to see how much panic and chaos he can cause.

To begin with, the KSM civilian trial critics charge that the “9/11 mastermind” and his 9/11 co-conspirators will use their incarceration in a federal penal facility to spread their message of terror both within and outside the facility. The critics fail to inform the public that KSM and his co-conspirators will probably be housed in Unit 10 South of the Special Housing Unit in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (“MCC”) located in Manhattan. Unit 10 South is considered the most secure housing unit in any federal facility operated by the Federal Bureau of Prison (“BOP”) in the New York City area. 1/ It’s an ultra maximum security unit used almost exclusively to house terrorism suspects and other offenders who pose a proven danger to other inmates or prison guards. Placement in Unit 10 South has been called the “’nuclear option’ of indefinite solitary confinement.” 2/

Federal regulations grant the BOP tremendous authority to impose “special administrative measures (“SAMs”) on terror suspects for the specific reason of preventing them from instigating acts of terrorism or violence. These regulations, codified in 28 CFR 501.3, provide:

(a) Upon direction of the Attorney General, the Director, Bureau of Prisons, may authorize the Warden to implement special administrative measures that are reasonably necessary to protect persons against the risk of death or serious bodily injury. These procedures may be implemented upon written notification to the Director, Bureau of Prisons, by the Attorney General or, at the Attorney General’s direction, by the head of a federal law enforcement agency, or the head of a member agency of the United States intelligence community, that there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons, or substantial damage to property that would entail the risk of death or serious bodily injury to persons. These special administrative measures ordinarily may include housing the inmate in administrative detention and/or limiting certain privileges, including, but not limited to, correspondence, visiting, interviews with representatives of the news media, and use of the telephone, as is reasonably necessary to protect persons against the risk of acts of violence or terrorism. The authority of the Director under this paragraph may not be delegated below the level of Acting Director. (more…)

May 9, 2009

A DEFENSE AGAINST TORTURE

Filed under: Anti-Terrorism Lawyer — Tags: , , , , , — johntfloyd @ 1:44 am

The rule of law prevails over the demands of politics

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

In the wake of the Obama administration’s release of the “terror memos” and the political firestorm the release generated, the president has instructed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review all the facts and circumstances surrounding the “torture” interrogations conducted by CIA and U.S. military personnel and make a determination of whether criminal charges should be filed either against those who approved the torture interrogations or those who conducted them, or both. Any decision Attorney General Holder makes will trigger an intense political backlash.

While the Democratic leadership favors either the formation of some kind of “truth commission” to investigate the torture issue much like the 9/11 commission or the criminal prosecution of all those involved, indications from the media are that President Obama is not personally or politically prepared to embrace either concept. One thing is fairly certain. The president should follow the rule of law. As a Harvard Law School graduate and former law professor, Obama has a deep appreciation for making sure that the rule of law prevails over the demands of politics. The president should neither direct nor attempt to control the course of the attorney general’s investigation and he will most certainly abide by the attorney general’s final decision.

Recent leaks indicate that criminal prosecution is not being considered but that the Justice Department may recommend that those involved in crafting the documents be disciplined by their state bar associations or banned from the practice of law.

However, should the attorney general elect to prosecute those involved in the “torture” process under the Bush administration, recent decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and historical U.S. Supreme Court precedents may offer a defense to those indicted on torture charges. The federal torture statute, Section 2340A of Title 18 of the United States Code, requires the Government to prove following elements: 1) the torture occurred outside the United States; 2) the person who carried out the torture is a United States national; and 3) the person who carried out the torture is in the United States, regardless of the nationality of either the torturer or the victim of the torture. These same elements apply to those who conspire to carry out torture. Anyone convicted under this statute faces a fine or a term of imprisonment up to 20 years, or both. 1/ (more…)

Powered by WordPress © 2010 John T. Floyd III Crimnal Defense Attorney : Webmaster Kevin Grey Lee