Lyglenson Lemorin and the Liberty Seven
As a number of you have pointed out, the judge in the second (!) Liberty Seven trial just declared another mistrial. The government’s second failure to convince a jury that these "aspirational terrorists" were a legitimate terror threat has elicited increasingly critical comments:
University of Miami law professor Bruce Winick:
But Bruce Winick, a law professor at the University of Miami, said the second jury stalemate “tells a story. The jury doesn’t trust the government’s credibility here. It’s a trumped-up, overblown case.
”We’re paying the freight for prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, jurors — everyone,” he added. “Don’t we have better things to do with our criminal justice system than to make the defendants run the gantlet over and over again?”
Former USA Matthew Orwig:
"There’s no way to spin this other than to say this is another stunning defeat for the government," said Matthew Orwig, former U.S. attorney in Texas who served on a Justice Department terrorism and national security panel.
Stanford law professor Jenny Martinez:
“In a lot of these cases, the government has really oversold what it’s got,” said Jenny Martinez, an associate professor of law at Stanford who was involved in the Jose Padilla terrorism case. “They’ve held these huge press conferences at the beginning that set up these expectations that the government cannot fulfill.”
Yet, in spite of the increasing criticism of the government’s case, it appears that one man has already served several months of time for this case. The defendant who was acquitted in the first trial, Lyglenson Lemorin, was rounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and is (as far as I can tell) still in custody awaiting possible deportation.
Lemorin was spirited away from FDC, Miami and transferred to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA, by unknown government agents in the dead of night under secretive circumstances.
Apparently, the government has put Lemorin into deportation proceedings and has asserted in public documents, submitted after the gag order, that "Lemorin has liability in uncharged criminal conduct." That claim presumably makes Lemorin subject to a PATRIOT Act provision that provides the government broad leeway in deporting those with terrorist ties.
Lemorin is a legal US resident who grew up in the US, is married, and has two kids.
While some of the coverage yesterday notes that Lemorin is still facing deportation, none of it explains whether there has been a change in his status or whether there might be now that it has become increasingly clear that the government doesn’t have a case among Lemorin’s original co-defendants who were actually involved in this plot. That may be because the judge in this case issued a gag order covering Lemorin, his wife, and his lawyers–making it impossible for them to publicize the way the government is effectively trying him again for charges he was already acquitted of.
The government needs to decide by next Wednesday whether it will retry this case. Perhaps the gag order remains in place until then. Perhaps if the government gives up, finally, we will learn what has happened to Lemorin. But it appears he has been in detention for four months for a crime that juries won’t convict.
How many successful trials has the US had against accused terrorists? I think it’s zero, isn’t it? Or did Reid get convicted? Maybe one or two. How about white terrorists, like of the Timothy McVay type? You never hear about them, and they aren’t preemptively taken down.
It all boils down to this… The US can’t try their prisoners because they coerced and tortured them, so that evidence isn’t going to hold up. And even if they didn’t torture them, just holding them for 5 years, like they did in Guantanamo, without any rights or even charging them, is enough to weaken their case to nothing. SNAFU.
In case no one has answered this question, here is a report on the terrorist trials.(pdf). Here is a summary:
Current Status of All Charges
(1007 Total Charges; 104 Total Statutes)
pending 329
acquitted or dismissed 233
guilty 445
Bullet points:
29%
Conviction rate in prosecutions for
federal crimes of terrorism
17.2 years
Average sentence for individuals
convicted of and sentenced for
federal crimes of terrorism
4.25 years
Average sentence for all individuals
convicted and sentenced in cases
initially announced as terrorism cases
104
Total number of separate criminal
charges used to indict alleged
terrorists
12%
Proportion of terrorism cases that
involved WMDs (the definition of
which includes bombs, grenades,
other explosives, and poison gasses)
0
Number of people affiliated with
any radical Islamic group who have
been charged with plotting to use
chemical, biological, radiological, or
nuclear weapons
My take on this case is that it was a serious case of entrapment. From what I’ve read these guys couldn’t organize a bottle party in a brewery much less a serious terror plot.
It’s so hard to get a real take on any of these cases. I remember with the British airline plot, they said they found Hydrogen Peroxide. My old girlfriend used to dye her hair with that stuff in the 80’s. Then the plot itself, it was real, was so impractical, involving mixing chemicals on a plane. It just didn’t make sense. But that’s because the Government has lost my trust. It doesn’t mean that it was entrapment. When you try to convict people preemptively, you better have a solid case. The British convicted those guys.
I don’t think so, the trial started a couple of weeks ago.
It’s not a Mr. Science kinda mixing of chemicals, it more like a making Neslte Quick kinda mixing of chemicals or like mixing Baking soda and vinegar. It’s not that hard
Same take here. Seems like bagging these guys was meant to create a lot of media hoopla (which it did), to be followed by a show trial convicting terrorists in a foiled plot on U.S. soil.
Big overture….leeetle show.
“”Lemorin has liability in uncharged criminal conduct.” That claim presumably makes Lemorin subject to a PATRIOT Act provision that provides the government broad leeway in deporting those with terrorist ties.
Lemorin is a legal US resident who grew up in the US, is married, and has two kids.”
What if the Patriot Act provision that allows deportation?
Is there a “disappearance” provision (ala Argentina) in case the accused is a US Citizen, or can they be deported too?
Should read:
what is the provision in the patriot act that allows deportation
Novak raps Fitzy as a prosecutor who views “jounalists as adversaries”
Hey Bobby, he was referring to “lying sack of shit journalists” like
you, you fuckhead…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..inionsbox1
george bush couldn’t catch a terrorist with a month’s warning
but we already have the evidence of that, don’t we
I would love to listen in on a Conyers or Leahy led committee meeting where DOJ reported on all of its post 9/11 terrorism cases. Does anyone know of a site that tracks those type of cases?
Answering my own question here is an interesting site that came from a quick google search.
http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/169/
While the government continues to prosecute this case, the government continues to use taxpayer money to bail out Wall Streeters who were ‘leveraging’ at ratios as high as 30:1 and calling that kind of rampant gambling ‘investment’. It is also turning a blind eye to polluters, as pouring $14.1 million/hour into Iraq.
I’m not condoning violence, but its far from the biggest threat we face.
The damage done by the overpaid, egoistic swindlers on Wall Street is more fundamental, corrosive, and irreparable than a bomb threat that makes the evening newz. I thought this was the money quote:
Meanwhile, apparently the Presidential race turns on whether or not Obama insulted Pennsylvanians for pointing out that they have no reason to trust a government that has turned its back on them.
Lunacy.
What BushCo is getting Reversed on – in virtually every case – is the Government’s Assertion that the Defendants are Guilty of Being Ideological Criminals, and therefore Not Entitled to the Protections of the Law.
Each time Bush designates some Human Being as an Agent of Terror – on the strength of nothing more than his own personal Say-So – a political act – that person is Already Guilty in BushWorld. It’s only a question of ‘which’ Crimes will be ‘used’ to Convict.
Haynes obviously feels the same way as Bush on this…It’s a kind of Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Ideological Intervention – a Super-Power of the UE that causes all the Loyal Goopers to get down on the ground and cry out, “Command Us, Oh Sovereign!”
In case after case, we’re ’seeing’ Bush’s Hubris – he won’t change his mind on the poor bastard’s guilt, despite not a fucking shred of evidence. He insists they come before the Docket, he gets sharply reversed, and…and…then…wait for it…
He comes back, again! With no new evidence! Saying, “I ‘know’ they are Guilty, why can’t you ‘play ball’ with me and see it My way, too? What’s wrong with you?!!!”
No matter how many times these kids are brought to Trial, singly or together, it still won’t change the fact that they didn’t even know where the hell the Sears Tower was at the time they were accused of plotting to blow it up!
Bush, however, is saying they are Guilty of “wrong thinking” or thought-crime – by his sole designation – and therefore they do not have any rights, including No Human Rights.
And, he’s further saying that he’s going to keep bringing these UE-Designated Thought-Criminals to Trial until the Courts see it his way, too!
As far as Bush, and Haynes, are concerned, those ‘Activist’ Courts are Wrong!
If the Feds want to go after terrorists in Florida,
and get the charges to stick,
maybe they could start with these guys.
Wow, forgot about that. Terrific link.
Cases like the Liberty Seven are all that probably stand between those goose-stepping Rovian agitators (who ended up with cushy WH and DHS jobs) and unemployment.
Who am I to whine about the Bear Stearns bailout when clearly, all FBI resources should be focused on seven unfortunates in Miami? Silly me.
Assuming that these seven people were arrested on June 22, 2006 for no good reason, what was their arrest meant to bump off the front page?
On Friday, June 23, 2006, The New York Times published a major story on “the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a secret CIA surveillance of international private banking for the last five years via the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and rejects government requests to withdraw it.” -wiki
‘Government requests to withdraw it’ means the Bush team knew it was coming…so they had somebody arrested.
maryo2 – In addition to ‘arresting people’ to grab headlines away from potentially damaging Political News, I’ve also long thought that Bush and Cheney ‘used’ the Terror Threat Level to goose-through the 45-day renewals – which seem to have been actually calculated as the nearest Friday to 45 days – to ‘certify’ the ‘Legality’ of The Program.
In this case, June 23, 2005 was a Friday – I wonder if there was a renewal due?
I wonder if anyone has ‘corelated’ Known or Estimated Program Renewal Dates with The Terror Threat Level, splashy Terror Arrests, or Ominous Terror News?
If there is a corelation, then that suggests that Bush’s UE Power was based on ‘Perceived Threats’ and not authentic, tracked and validated, Threats. IOW, Ashcroft wasn’t actually signing-off on the Legality of the Program – Bush didn’t trust that to Anyone except Addington – instead, Ashcroft was ’signing-off’ on Agreeing with Bush that there was a Threat Sufficient to Continue Bush’s Unlimited Power as the UE out there, every 45 days.
That means that every 45 days, Bush had to ‘invent’ a Perceived Threat – if there wasn’t an actual threat – in order to ‘keep’ his UE Super-Powers: Do As I Say, Not As I Do; What I say Goes; and No Back-Talk!
Until Comey came along, Ashcroft was just taking Bush’s word for it, every 45 days.
Ashcroft was/is a True Believer – hook, line and sinker – he believed Bush was the UE, which Ashcroft took to be ‘not less than God on Earth.’
And, just when it looked like Bush’s Round-mouthing Rubber Stamp AG was going to be found out as The Weakling He Actually Was, at the Hospital, how Convenient that Madrid came along on the next day, the 45th day…
Gee, who could have wanted ‘back-up’ justification like that – in case your HenchPerson AG got ‘compromised’?
I agree. I have a read such a timeline somewhere. I will look for it. It probably needs to be updated.
Similarly, I am not convinced that a 16 year-old girl called a family violence hotline two weeks ago to spark the FBI raid of the polygamist sect in Texas. That crap has been sitting on Rove’s back-burner for years waiting for a need to distract the public – this time it was from Petraeus’ and Crocker’s testimonies.
Oh, I am convinced that a girl called the hotline. I have serious reservations as to whether she was 16 and present at the compound; I doubt both elements there. That is why I think the whole shebang is based on a faulty warrant affidavit, and is therefore all terribly poisoned fruit.
(I typed this earlier but didn’t post it, but you went straight to where I was thinking.)
The 16-year-old Sarah who supposedly phoned a shelter on Saturday and Sunday before the big Thursday raid of the Texas polygamist sect has not been found , or at least not been identifed, according to Good Morning America this morning.
Questions – Is an affidavit publicly available? If yes, how can I get it?
wiki says affidavits are signed by the “declarant” and a witness. I want to know who signed as declarant. It couldn’t have been the girl.
General rule is that affidavits must be filed in the issuing court within ten days of their execution; so you would have to check with the clerk of that county court. They are a public record unless sealed for some reason by the court. The “declarant” is almost always a law enforcement officer who relates the facts and circumstances known to him. The witness bit can be the court clerk, judge, notary etc.; whatever, the reason for a witness is because the affidavit must be made sworn under oath and penalty of perjury.
I called the County Clerk’s office, they said it is handled in the District Court. I emailed District Clerk Sheri Woodfin to ask where I can find the affidavit.
http://www.co.tom-green.tx.us/distclrk/index.html
Here is one of the affidavits, I believe there is at least one more. To my knowledge, this is the initial one.
//Ashcroft was/is a True Believer – hook, line and sinker – he believed Bush was the UE, which Ashcroft took to be ‘not less than God on Earth.’//
UE or the Anti-Christ?
so sorry to go O/T
read this op ed over at the Guardian and thought it was wonderful…
http://commentisfree.guardian……erica.html
Since the prosecutions of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the first World Trade Center bombing) and Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City) in the 1990s, I can not think of a single terrorism case that has been handled with even a modicum of professionalism. The Moussaoui and Padilla cases were long running bad jokes. This one and the Holy Land Foundation end in mistrials because the government presents cases that are mindbogglingly weak. Even one like the Lackawanna Six where the government won was shockingly bad. The bad guys got away (one Hijazi was later blown up by a Hellfire missile in Yemen) and those who were caught were not so much terrorists but dweebs.
And then you have CIA making conclusions such as this in other cases:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/n…..ely_no.php
Which of course we will never know because err, the self same CIA destroyed them.
OT,
But, the buzz is that Putin secretly asked Bushie to be his best man.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..97189.html
Jeffrey Toobin was on CNN this morning commenting about the mistrial, and he said that the DOJ policy was to stop potential terrorist plots at the earliest possible opportunity, and that the consequence of such a policy was that there would very often not be enough evidence to convict, but that the government has taken the position that it is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to laying charges because the consequences of inaction could be so devastating (paraphrasing). He did not criticize this approach, which disturbed me, since it amounts to a declaration that in terrorism cases, the presumption of innocence is now “quaint” and “inoperative”. The presumption of innocence is supposed to the golden thread of the justice system – that there should be evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and a probability of conviction on that evidence before a trial is held. The justice system has been dealing with attempted murders and other inchoate offences for centuries, through conspiracy charges and other methods and there is no reason that these standards could not be applied in terrorism cases with appropriate evidentiary rules. These defendants are often held in pre-trial detention and perhaps even abuse and torture and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques due to the nature of the charges under which they are being held, with flimsy evidence. When it comes to terrorism, I think it is just another example of the awful path you go down when prosecutors start investigating people instead of crimes. That doesn’t even begin to touch this particular case, where there was strong evidence of FBI encouragement and entrapment.
This would be laughable if it were not so sad and stupid. It sounds like Cheney’s 1% Doctrine is being applied to the justice system — with similar results.
That’s good spin, but I’m really not buying it. Trials are expensive, and botched trials even more so. For the money they’ve blown so far to get an acquittal and two mistrials, they probably could have gotten 24/7 surveillance on these bozos. If they had been real terrorists, that could have gotten us good intelligence on other people we needed to keep an eye on, AND we still would have been able to disrupt any plot that started to come together. And if they turned out to be the delusional street thugs that they are, the DOJ could have saved itself a lot of embarrassment.
It’s true. They haven’t been convicted. The trial goes on.
Actually, I read about their stash of devices and stuff. In America, with current gun laws, and freedom of speech, people can have an arsenal and hate literature and still not be committing a crime. There are plenty of white militias out there who the US Government doesn’t bother with.
Also, I don’t think Mr. Eager Sheriff was supposed to tell us that he had an inside source for four years. After he said that (some period of time, how much, enough for DOJ to call him??), he backtracked and said that he wouldn’t tell us if his source was at Texes, Colorado or Arizona.
Why would a Texas sheriff, locally elected at the county level, have an inside source reporting to him about happenings in Arizona or Colorado?
And if his source was in CO or AZ, then does this line add up – “I have had a good informant who has given me good information over the past four years,” Doran says. “This person has been assisting us as we’ve gone forward on this operation.” ?
And note this line: “State troopers put into action the plan they had on the shelf”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories…..ME_4007724
I don’t know what else the Sheriff has said, but that particular quote doesn’t say the informant was on the inside of the compound. Maybe the informant was on the inside of the Administration, either claiming to have a contact inside the compound — or else making representations about what was going on inside the compound based on surveillance. Maybe electronic surveillance? Maybe hoovering?
Actually, When mary Jo White was US Attoreny in DSNY and Dave Kelley and Pat Fitzgerald were co-chiefs (and founders) of SDNY’s counter terro unit, quite a few convictions. The first WTC bombing, Kobar Towers, the USS Cole, The day of Terror Plot, the Bridge and Tunnel plot (Abdel Rachmann)and more
This is heart lifting and relates to the thread topic.
http://rattube.com/blog1/2008/…..ht-priest/
Actually, I found that quite annoying.