The intent and actions of the defendants were questions for the jury. The jury that heard the evidence answered those questions.
Are you in favor of doing away with jury trials?
Are you in favor of judges ignoring the law?
If your answers are ‘yes’ and ‘yes’, then perhaps you should move to a third world dictatorship. If your answers are ‘no’ and ‘no’, then you really shouldn’t have any complaint with the result.
Did they go for the higher charge to force a plea bargain on a lesser charge?
Maybe, but if so, isn't that a fundamental subversion of jurisprudence?
Throw the book at someone so they will cave and waive any rights to save time/money? Is that justice or just a cheap imitation?
When you get right down to it, a jury is only as good as its members. They are charged by the judge to rule on the application of facts in the case they have not been told to disregard and to apply it narrowly to the law. They are told to ignore jury nullification, if they are so much as aware of that.
I'm not for a dictatorship, but recognize (especially nowadays) the weaknesses inherent in the jury system.
The intent was that while some guilty parties might walk, innocent ones would not be convicted.
That these charges were made as 'terrorism' charges would imply not only intent, malice and forethought, but the intent to cause terror. So who was terrorized?