Posted on 05/21/2007 5:56:14 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
MIAMI - The trial plays out with no fanfare. This is not the stuff of O.J. Simpson or Anna Nicole Smith. Yet there has never been a U.S. criminal defendant quite like suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla.
Padilla is a U.S. citizen on trial for allegedly joining a support cell for Islamic extremists. The government was forced to prosecute him even though it would have preferred to lock him up without trial. Prosecutors also had to drop allegations that Padilla planned to set off a radioactive "dirty" bomb.
Legal experts say his case could have long-lasting legal implications for the war on terrorism because of what the verdict will say about the Bush administration's tactics.
"Padilla was properly classified as an enemy combatant, but he gets access to the federal courts because he happened to be born here," said Jeffrey Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. "To the common understanding of the average American, he is a traitor to his country regardless of what he is actually charged with."
Monday marked the second week of testimony in a trial expected to last into August. Padilla and two co-defendants face possible life sentences.
Padilla, 36, was arrested without criminal charge in 2002. He was held for 3 1/2 years in isolation by the military at a Navy brig. For months, he saw no lawyer or family and had no conversations with anyone except his jailers and interrogators.
Unlike other courtroom dramas such as the Smith and Simpson cases, media attention on Padilla has been limited. No cameras or audio recorders are permitted in federal court, and lawyers have not paraded out to microphones to offer opinions on testimony. There are no protesters or paparazzi.
"What this trial is about is that it is possible for the government to have a good shot at addressing the war on terror and getting convictions of terrorists in the criminal courts," said Martin Flaherty, a Fordham University law professor who co-chairs the school's international human rights program.
The case may also help determine whether future terrorism suspects are tried in federal courts or left to military tribunals, where they have far fewer rights and rules of evidence are less strict.
Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor who worked in President Clinton's Justice Department, said Padilla is a symbol of the Bush administration's "circumventing of normal constitutional processes in the name of fighting terror."
"I think it is going to be a moral lesson in not trying to take shortcuts in trying to vindicate the war on terror," said Greenberger, director of the university's Center for Health and Homeland Security.
A spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington declined to comment on the case Monday, referring questions to federal prosecutors in Miami. Prosecutors also declined to comment but have insisted their case is strong.
In May 2002, Padilla stepped off a plane in Chicago and was met by federal agents armed with a material witness warrant, which enabled them to arrest him without a criminal charge.
Padilla spent a month in a jail in New York on that warrant, until President Bush declared him an enemy combatant, sparking a lengthy legal battle over presidential powers to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely.
At the time, authorities explained, they were acting on suspicions that Padilla had been on an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city.
Padilla was kept in isolation at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He was not charged with a crime or afforded basic constitutional rights until late 2005, when the Supreme Court was poised to take up his appeals.
In the meantime, evidence for the "dirty bomb" plot fell apart. The government has a massive amount of evidence that Padilla was an al-Qaida soldier — including clues that he may have been on a mission to blow up high-rise apartments using natural gas. But none of the evidence would stand up in civilian court because he allegedly "confessed" during interrogations with no lawyer present.
Many of the witnesses who might place Padilla at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan are unavailable, some because they are being held at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Others are in custody overseas or dead.
So prosecutors were left with a "mujahideen data form" that Padilla allegedly filled out to attend the camp and a few intercepted telephone conversations in which his name comes up or he is heard speaking about his travels. Expert witnesses are expected to fill in the gaps, but there's no hard evidence of a specific act of violence tied to Padilla.
"If the government had at the start used good old-fashioned police work to build a case against this guy and brought him to trial, I think the chances of getting a conviction would have been much greater," Flaherty said. "That's not to say they won't get a conviction here."
Is anybody covering this? I’d like to know what some of the testimony is. I’ve missed any stories on opening arguments.
Not sure who is covering it in depth.
I’m just trying to post trial news threads as I see them.
It seems to me the only people who care about Padilla are the ones who want to use his case in the WOB - War on Bush.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.