 This has been another crazy week, so I missed posting this one on Thursday. The government failed to convict seven Liberty City (Miami) men of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower without explosives, money or shoes ... as part of an al-Qaida plot made the more difficult because the men aren't Muslims ... (ahem) ... on Thursday, after the case of the Liberty City Seven ended with one acquittal and a mistrial for the other six.
I know one of the jurors on this case, and one of the lawyers. Needless to say I have refrained from discussing the case with my juror friend up to now, although I plan to now that it's over. This was always a flimsy, almost silly case -- seven down on their luck guys from the hood, practicing karate together in a warehouse and forming their own little community group, suddenly decide to pledge fealty to al-Qaida without renouncing their own religion -- Moorism -- which would surely have gotten them beheaded had any actual al-Qaida ever caught up with them.
We interviewed a cousin of the acquitted man, Lyglenson Lemorin, a native of Haiti like several of the men, back on 1080 several months ago, and his contention that his cousin was nothing more than a religious guy who kept to himself turns out to have been believable for the jury. Unfortunately for Lemorin, he will probably be deported anyway.
I was hopeful that the men would be acquitted, based on the almost laughability of the case, and the seedy nature of the star witnesses, as outlined thoroughly by the Miami New Times here ... but I did worry that in this age of fear, when Republicans have spent six years breeding constant terror into the populace, that there might be tremendous pressure to convict inside that jury room (especially after the Padilla case.) I can only guess that the defense's superior jury selection saved the day, as did the government's ham-handed job of infiltrating and setting up the hapless group.
Good job, Rod V and the other attorneys!
Now, let's hope the Bush administration wises up and drops this silly case. So far, their track record suggests that pursuing a retrial won't do much good anyway.
More on the case from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
There were shifting alliances, heated debates and an intense review of the evidence.
After nine days of deliberations in the so-called Liberty City Seven terrorism case, four jurors stood firmly against any convictions, skeptical that the defendants were serious about helping terrorists or even considering the possibility before FBI informants began prodding them, the jury foreman said in an interview Friday.
Of the four, some adamantly believed the group's central defense that an alleged plot to bomb buildings in Miami and Chicago was a scam for money, said foreman Jeff Agron, 46.
Agron, a religious school principal and a lawyer who supported convicting some defendants on some counts, said jurors who embraced the defense's scam theory were "unwilling to change their minds."
"I think a lot of the jurors really, really struggled and analyzed and went back and forth throughout the deliberations," he said. "I also think there were some jurors who more or less had their minds made up and it was going to be very, very hard to persuade them."
Juror Michael Silva, 48, said he wavered as he considered the evidence during deliberations. However, he described the prosecution's case as "muddled" and said he gave little weight to testimony from two government informants.
"The evidence just wasn't clear-cut," said Silva, general manager of a Miami radio station. "It was not like they had evidence of somebody planting explosives."
According to both jurors, the panel did not divide strictly along racial lines. Of the two men and two women aggressively opposing convictions, three were black and one was white, said Agron. The remaining eight jurors were also a racially diverse group. ...
And from the Miami Herald yesterday:
ext trial will sound like first
By JAY WEAVER
Some legal observers and pundits say the Bush administration will confront a daunting challenge in the second trial of the Liberty City 7 terror case because they will be stuck with the same witnesses and same evidence that led to Thursday's mistrial.
The only difference: a new group of jurors.
But experts note prosecutors are going into the new trial -- scheduled for Jan. 7 in Miami federal court -- knowing that a previous jury was so skeptical of their case that they acquitted one defendant and could not reach an agreement on the other six after nine days of deliberations.
U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lenard, who has imposed a gag order on all parties, will preside over the second trial.
The original Liberty City 7 case was built upon an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative who led a group of minority men from a poor Miami neighborhood into a 9/11-like plot. The two-month trial turned on the role of the FBI informant, who infiltrated the Miami organization in December 2005. He was introduced to the group's ringleader, Narseal Batiste, by a previous FBI informant, a North Miami shopkeeper who began reporting to his handlers that Batiste was allegedly talking about terrorism plans.
At trial, Batiste came across as a complex messianic-like figure, a father of four who lived in North Miami while trying to get a construction business off the ground. He also was trying to start a chapter of the Moorish Science Temple in a warehouse called ''The Embassy'' in Liberty City. The religion embraces the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
`FABRICATED'
His main defense: The FBI informant entrapped him and his men in a ``fabricated crime.''
After their arrests, agents found no terrorism blueprints or weapons of mass destruction in The Embassy -- only Samurai swords, law books, Bibles, Korans and personal items.
University of Miami law professor Bruce Winick says ``the [second] trial will depend on jury selection -- that's such an important part of the case.''
''Here we had an interracial jury [in the first trial] that understands what goes down in the 'hood,'' he said.
Indeed, the 12-member jury -- a mix of blacks, Hispanics and white non-Hispanics -- failed to find common ground on six of seven defendants. One, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted because they believed he had distanced himself from the others before their arrests in June 2006.
On Thursday, about half of the jurors believed the paid FBI informant, an Arabic man known as ''Brother Mohammad,'' teased the defendants with promises of $50,000 so they would pledge their faith to al Qaeda in a scheme to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and FBI buildings. In other words, the informant entrapped them, some jurors concluded.
''Some jurors believed that and others did not,'' said foreman Jeffrey Agron, 46, a lawyer who is a principal at a Jewish school in Kendall.
The other half concluded some of the defendants joined the terror conspiracy -- and it didn't matter whether the al Qaeda representative was playing a role for the FBI because some of the defendants believed him, Agron said.
SKEPTICS
Some legal experts have viewed the homegrown terrorism case with much cynicism, especially after the Bush administration called the seven men's arrests a ''significant victory'' in the war on domestic terrorism -- declaring they were as ''dangerous'' as al Qaeda.
''Was justice really served by overblowing this into another 9/11?'' asked UM's Winick. ``This case has always made me wonder about the political motives of the Bush administration before the midterm elections in fall 2006.''
Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said the fundamental flaw in the Liberty City 7 case was the way the government overplayed the case with so much publicity when there was such little evidence of an actual security threat.
''It is difficult to believe these people were really going to blow up the Sears Tower,'' Tobias said.
Tobias, who has followed numerous terrorism trials in Virginia and other parts of the country, said the Liberty City 7 case is part of a pattern ``where the government overstates its claims and what it can prove -- it doesn't always prevail.'' ... Previous:Labels: Bush administration, GWOT, Liberty City Seven |
