Posted on 12/05/2016 12:50:56 PM PST by jazusamo
A federal appeals court Monday upheld the conviction of Mohamed Osman Mohamud for attempting to detonate a bomb during downtown Portland's holiday tree-lighting ceremony, rejecting his argument that federal authorities had entrapped him.
While the three-member panel of judges in the 9Th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the government's conduct was "quite aggressive at times,'' they concluded it fell short of a due process violation, according to the 50-page ruling.
"The complete lack of reluctance on Mohamud's part to participate in the bombing - indeed his immediate zeal to see it through - separates this case from those in which courts have found defendants entrapped as a matter of law,'' the panel ruled.
Mohamud, 25, is a Somalia-born naturalized U.S. citizen. He was sent to prison for 30 years after a federal jury in 2013 convicted him of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
On Nov. 26, 2010, Mohamud, then 19, pressed the keypad of a cellphone twice to detonate what he thought was a massive fertilizer bomb packed into a van next to Pioneer Courthouse Square, where an estimated 25,000 people were gathered. The explosive was fake, supplied by the FBI.
Defense attorneys had argued before the federal appeals court in July that government entrapment and unlawful surveillance led to Mohamud's conviction.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Stephen Sady argued that government "overreach'' before Mohamud's arrest in 2010, constitutional errors made when the case was heard and surveillance of his communications without search warrants denied him a fair trial.
The hearing marked the first review by a federal appeals court of a criminal conviction based on the warrantless surveillance of an American's international communications with foreigners under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act.
But the appeals court rejected those arguments.
The appeals court found the district judge was not wrong in denying Mohamud's motion to suppress evidence obtained through surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, even though prosecutors didn't disclose the surveillance until after the trial had concluded.
The appellate judges found there was no prosecutorial misconduct and Mohamud couldn't show that he faced prejudice from the late disclosure. Further, the panel found that the electronic surveillance of Mohamud under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act didn't violate his Fourth Amendment right.
"All this case involved was the targeting of an overseas foreign national under (FISA) through which Mohamud's email communications were incidentally collected,'' the ruling said. No warrants were required to obtain those communications, the appeals court found.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act allows the National Security Agency to track phone calls from suspected foreign terrorists to Americans without getting warrants to do so.
The American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon and the Electronic Frontier Foundation had filed a brief in support of Mohamud's appeal, saying the U.S. program violated the Fourth Amendment right of all Americans to be free from unlawful searches.
Prosecutors countered that the warrantless surveillance of Mohamud's calls with suspected foreign terrorists was reasonable because the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to non-U.S. citizens abroad.
"Many young people think and say alarming things that they later disavow, and we will never know if Mohamud - a young man with promise - would have carried out a mass attack absent the FBI's involvement. But some 'promising' young people - Charles Whitman, Timothy McVeigh, and James Holmes, to name a few from a tragically long list - take the next step, leading to horrific consequences,'' the appeals panel wrote.
"While technology makes it easier to capture the thoughts of these individuals, it also makes it easier for them to commit terrible crimes. Here the evidence supported the jury's verdict, and the government's surveillance, investigation and prosecution of Mohamud were consistent with constitutional and statutory requirements.''
I love the first comment after article: "Merry Christmas Mohamed ! Your gift came early this year."
Two strikes fro “Mohammed” twice.
Mohamed had zeal...lol
Don’t they all?
Another 19 year old Somali, must be a coming of age thing.
A guy with the name ‘not’ so nice, they had to say it twice.
Anyone following islam is evil. Period.
Yeh! Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
What holiday has a tree, I wonder?
If Huma Abedin married Mohamed Mohamud Mohumud, she would be Huma Mohumud.
Porland Orygun (see title) should change its name back to Portland. Or perhaps to Porlamud.
I am positive there are terrorists working for Intel in Portland, OR.
Workers are afraid to talk about it.
I had one ask me how to buy machine guns.
Even telling the FBI could get you fired.
Enjoy life in the slammer, mohammed.
BUMP
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