Lyglenson Lemorin has been acquitted of terrorism charges. To repeat -- a jury heard the government's case against him, including allegations that he swore and oath to al-Qaida and plotted to blow up the Sears Tower along with Miami FBI headquarters, and found the government's case wanting. While the other six members of the so-called Liberty City Seven received mistrials on the same evidence, Lemorin was found NOT GUILTY.
So why is the Bush administration rushing to deport him?
MIAMI -- A federal judge warned the Bush administration Friday not to fast-track the deportation of a Haitian man acquitted of terrorism conspiracy charges because he may be called as a witness in the retrial of his six former co-defendants. "I have to protect the rights of these defendants, and I intend to do so," U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard said at a hearing.
Lenard also said the identities of the jury to be chosen next month for the second trial will be kept secret from prosecutors, defense lawyers and the public because of improper contacts and leaks in the first trial. The mother of one defendant was given a list with "X" marks next to the names of six jurors.
"This was a cause of great concern to me," the judge said. "At this point, it is unknown to the court what that list was about."
The retrial is set to begin Jan. 7 for six men accused of plotting with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of starting an anti-government insurrection. The first two-month trial resulted in a hung jury Dec. 13 for those six and an acquittal on all charges for 32-year-old Lyglenson Lemorin, a legal U.S. resident originally from Haiti.
A day after the trial ended, Lemorin was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and transported to a detention center in Lumpkin, Ga., where officials have begun deportation proceedings. An initial hearing in that case is set for Jan. 8.
Defense lawyers intending to call Lemorin as a witness asked Lenard to prevent ICE from whisking him out of the country quickly, and Lenard agreed.
Lenard is acting due to the pending retrial, but the fact of the Bush administration's keen desire to deport Lemorin in the first place raises alarms for me.
It sure looks like they're trying to have their trial and eat it too -- having lost in court, they are seeking to push him out of the country so that they can call him a terrorism threat anyway. Either that or they don't want him in the country talking about what has been done to him and his cohorts. From the Herald this past week:
Lemorin, 32, a lawful U.S. resident, [emphasis added] remains behind bars -- far from his Miami family -- in the tiny town of Lumpkin, Ga., a deportation center 150 miles south of Atlanta.
On Thursday, Lemorin's wife learned from The Miami Herald that federal authorities have charged her husband with unspecified ''administrative immigration violations'' and that he has been placed in ''removal proceedings'' that could lead to his deportation to his native Haiti.
''He has kids here, and we really need him home,'' said Lemorin's wife, Charlene Mingo Lemorin. ``He can't do anything for us in Haiti. Everything was settled by the jury. He was found not guilty. It's like the nightmare is not over.''
Family members say they are upset and dumbfounded because Lemorin has lived in South Florida for more than two decades and has no criminal history.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to discuss Lemorin's alleged immigration violations.
''He was detained by ICE, and for safety and security reasons, we can't say where he is,'' agency spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez told The Miami Herald.
... The day after he was acquitted [December 13], immigration agents whisked Lemorin away to Miami International Airport.
Lemorin -- born in Haiti, raised in Miami and the father of two children who live in Little Haiti -- told his family and attorneys that he feared the agents were going to put him on a plane to his native Haiti.
Instead, they drove him to the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade County. Then came an overnight drive to the Stewart detention center in Lumpkin.
Leonard Fenn, who temporarily represented Lemorin in the immigration case, expressed outrage over the government's actions.
''We're presuming they're claiming there is reason to believe he was a supporter of terrorist activities or a terrorist himself,'' said Fenn, who got on the case through Lemorin's criminal attorney, Joel DeFabio.
''It's outrageous -- a complete misallocation of government resources,'' Fenn said.
Immigration experts said that under the USA Patriot Act, adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a lawful U.S. resident such as Lemorin may still be locked up and possibly deported on terrorism-related charges -- even if they cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in federal court.
Miami attorney Cheryl Little, who heads the Florida Immigration Advocacy Center, said Lemorin's arrest by ICE may be ''overreaching but not unprecedented'' in the post-9/11 era, in which non-U.S. citizens acquitted at trial on drug-trafficking or other charges are sometimes picked up and dumped into the immigration legal system. Her center agreed to represent Lemorin, whose first immigration court hearing is set for Jan. 8.
Lemorin's attorneys and family now fear he will be charged with the same terrorism-related conspiracy offenses in immigration court, where an administrative judge -- not a jury of his peers -- decides his fate.
There is no principle of double jeopardy barring his prosecution on the same charges, and the burden of proof is based on a weaker civil standard, the weight of the evidence tipping one way or the other.
And for that, you can thank the United States Congress.
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
