The terrorist mastermind, Jose Padilla, gets seventeen years:
Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.
The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke marks another step in the extraordinary personal and legal odyssey for the 37-year- old Muslim convert, a U.S. citizen who was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest amid the “dirty bomb” allegations. He had faced up to life in prison.
Cooke said she was giving Padilla some credit—over the objections of federal prosecutors—for his lengthy military detention at a Navy brig in South Carolina. She agreed with defense lawyers that Padilla was subjected to “harsh conditions” and “extreme environmental stresses” while there.
I don’t think there is any way to interpret this sentence other than as a rebuke to the government, who had been asking for life while insisting Padilla is a grave threat (yet, conveniently, never presented any evidence of that threat).
The article continues:
But Cooke said that as serious as the conspiracy was, there was no evidence linking the men to specific acts of terrorism anywhere.
“There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere,” she said.
ACTIVIST JUDGE!
Civil liberties groups and Padilla’s lawyers called his detention unconstitutional for someone born in this country and contended that he was only charged criminally because the Supreme Court appeared poised to order him either charged or released.
Jurors in the criminal case never heard Padilla’s full history, which according to U.S. officials included a graduation from the al-Qaida terror camp, a plot to detonate the “dirty bomb” and a plot to fill apartments with natural gas and blow them up. Much of what Padilla supposedly told interrogators during his long detention as an enemy combatant could not be used in court because he had no access to a lawyer and was not read his constitutional rights.
Padilla’s lawyers argued for a lenient sentence, in part because of his minor role in the conspiracy that was the subject of last year’s trial and because of claims that he was mistreated and tortured while he was held at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. U.S. officials denied those claims repeatedly.
I don’t know what the real story of Padilla’s involvement (if any) in this mess might be, and since most everything we do know was obtained while torturing the man, I doubt we ever will. I suspect that in the future, when cooler heads look back at this disgraceful period in our nation’s history, the alleged villainous treachery of Jose Padilla will be greatly overshadowed by the outrageous treatment he received and the dishonest and bumbling campaign to subvert the law while attempting to publicly convict him. The real story is not Jose Padilla, who for all we know may actually have been dangerous, but who is now, courtesy of the Bush administration, a broken and mentally deficient mess. The real story will be of the little men who, in moments of great patriotic fervor, decided it was up to them to destroy our nation’s principles in order to save us all.
History will not look kindly on those pikers.
Bob In Pacifica
I will sleep in safety tonight.
Dug Jay
Oh, Boo Hoo Hoo.
Punchy
And yet the Amendment outlawing “cruel and unusual punishment” was completely ignored for this trial.
Not to mention an Amendment concerning being held without charges….rights to a lawyer….People keep forgetting — this guy was an American citizen.
Incertus (Brian)
It will if they’re allowed to write the narrative the way they have in the past.
les
AKA victory.
GSD
American shmamerican. He could have blowed up the whole country.
How can you enjoy tax cuts when you’re blowed up?
-GSD
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Everyone should listen to Dug Jay.
He knows exactly what it’s like to be a mentally deficient mess, says it ain’t that bad.
Dug Jay: after you get locked in an isolation tank for days at a time over a period of five years, then you can talk. For now, just walk away and pick on convicts whining that their peanut butter isn’t the organic, chunky kind.
Padilla’s one of the exceptions where government stupidity cancelled out a good deal of his own.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Wasn’t ignored. You don’t apply the amendment to the charges, only the evidence in the trial, thus preventing the government from profiting. Most of the government’s case got hobbled because of that crap.
Now, when civil or criminal suit is brought against the gov’t, THEN you get to bring out said amendment for punishment’s sake.
/plays Summon Myiq2xu card
Bubblegum Tate
Clearly–she didn’t even offer to personally execute him with the American flag!
All you need to know is that he’s an Al Qaeda terrorist. That’s all the wingnutosphere seems to know.
Zifnab
To take a page from Dug Jay:
Since when does a jury need to hear “history” and “testimony” to convict a terrorist of terrorism? I don’t know where they found these Osama-kissing, America-hating, liberal, jihadist, wackos, but I do know 12 people who’s phones should be getting tapped extensively by the NSA real soon.
The fact that a radical Islamofascist got off with such a light sentence when our President was adamant in seeing him permanently detained just seems to prove that the criminal justice system is insufficient for prosecuting known terrorist murdering scum that hate America for her Freedoms.
When we get hit by another nuclear Iranian-sponsored terror attack, at least we’ll know who to blame.
Davebo
That’s putting a lot more faith in this government than I’m willing to do.
Government: OK, we didn’t convict on the dirty bomb but we could have if the judge would have allowed the evidence.
Skeptic: Well, the trials over now so what the heck, show us what you’ve got.
Government: We can’t do that.
Skeptic: Why? Because it would show he was tortured? What did you do to him?
Government: We can’t tell you, it will teach other terrorists how to avoid succumbing to the sensation of drowning.. somehow.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
That’s ok. While this mechanism doesn’t seem to work on a humanitarian level, it works purely on a business level.
If a lawyer and his police entourage have a limited budget and limited time to convict, and they’ve been taught over and over again that courts won’t let them submit evidence with out a chain of custody form (that would reveal torturous practices), then the lawyer rationally chooses the not-so-fun-yet-proven way of conviction.
Punishing the dickhead for trying torture is only icing on the cake.
Also, don’t forget that this was a (very very evil and treasonous) experiment to see if they could do whatever they want to whomever they want, even citizens. So, not only was this demonically exceptional, but it also failed so far, with the rest of the results in limbo.
I breathe slightly easier when I hear the Padilla judge’s statements.
Bubblegum Tate
How long before some winger makes this point seriously instead of sarcastically? 10 minutes?
Punchy
I realized that after I posted it. What I meant wasn’t so much that the Amendment was ignored, but that the case should have been tossed due to the completely illegal nature of his confinement and incarceration (more 4th than 8th)
Tsulagi
Yep.
Apparently IOKIYAR. That’s also on the underside of their Purple Heart bandaids.
Gregory
Fixed.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
That’s the beauty of the thoroughness of the system. They popped out all the unfair one’s and kept the fair ones. Dickhead started messing around with bad people, and they got clean evidence for 17 years worth of Stupid. Now nobody of any decent moral stature can say we let this slip. Torture may have to be punished, but it shouldn’t punish innocent Americans by letting a known-asshole back on the street when you have clean evidence not to.
(Can you tell I’m perfectly happy with how this went so far?)
daleyrocks
I don’t think there is any way to interpret this sentence other than as a rebuke to the government
The rebukey thing to the government might have been had the jury acquitted him in the first place. They didn’t. Juries found him and two others guilty of conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Sour grapes over a sentence twice as long as the defense was requesting doesn’t sound like a victory for Padilla.
mantis
Who nominated this liberal activist judge, anyway? I’ll bet it was the Clenis! Checking…..
Nominated by George W. Bush on November 25, 2003
Oops. Clearly she must have brainwashed by some Islamofascist Svengali.
Jake
You know, I heard a high-pitched squealing and thought my PC was about to croak. Now I know it is the outraged shrieks of the fRighties.
OK, bets.
Which Code Brown Pants blogger will be the first to:
-Call Cooke a traitor.
-Point out that the libs must be rejoicing.
-Blame Cooke for the tarrist attacks that are sure to result from this.
-Say she ought to be sent to Gitmo.
-Notice she was appointed by Dubya.
r€nato
Padilla still got 17 years; he was certainly not an innocent soul.
I think the real victory here is that the criminal justice system is indeed up to the task of prosecuting terrorists as well as would-be terrorists; we don’t need star chamber trials and illegal detention.
troubled
and we still have the raw, gaping and yet inscrutable sore that is Gitmo. Accumulate enough hypocrisy and it becomes a big bright beaming symbol and it creates enemies where there were none
http://tshirtinsurgency.com/guantanamo-bay-t-shirt
Will Winters
What has always bothered me about the Padilla case was the lack of Constitutional Due Process.
I don’t know the exact charges against Padilla, but I do know he is a U.S. citizen, regardless of his crime he should be protected by the constitution. Instead, the government declared him an enemy combatant and, bam, he is no longer protected by the Constitution.
Think about that for a second – almost anyone can be declared an enemy combatant and due process no longer applied to you. Very, very scary.
Will
http://www.liberatenow.net
George B.
Off-topic, but Heath Ledger was just found dead.
That’s a fucking shame. He was a great actor.
Incertus (Brian)
But would it have been up to the challenge if Padilla had gotten a speedy trial, instead of being held in limbo for three and a half years? Or would this one have blown up like the Liberty Seven trial?
Bubblegum Tate
She communicated with Padilla via a system of blinks!
grumpy realist
I am constantly amazed that a horde of idiots who proudly call themselves “conservative” think nothing of throwing out 1000 years of Western Law traditions because they’re so damned scared of the “terraists.”
Conservatives my ass. Bed-wetting goose-stepping authoritarians, more like.
Cyrus
Will he be eligible for parole? Not that the “fruits of the poisonous tree” doctrine would come up in a parole hearing, or for that matter, should come up.
That reminds me of Dr. Strangelove somehow. “We know they’re evil precisely because they’re talking about such normal stuff!” Or maybe it’s Jonah Goldberg.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
One of the shrill ones… Malkin.
Shrill, but lib hater. Does Hinderaker fit that?
One of the diaper-wearing children constantly hiding under their desk… umm… Hannity, probably. I’m sure there are far more that don’t warrant my knowing they exist.
Easy headline. Has to be Limbaugh.
Oh that’s easy. Umm… uhhhhhhh
---does not compute. system halt---Sinister eyebrow
It’s a disgrace that it was even allowed to go to trial. The government violated every basic premise of due process from unlawful detention, denial of the right to counsel, denial of Miranda rights and denial of the right to a speedy trial to violation of multiple federal bars against torture to witholding evidence from the defense that could serve to mitigate or exonerate the charges against the defendant. Violations of federal statute, 4th, 5th, 6th 8th and 14th amendments…how is this in any way an acceptable way for a government to conduct itself with regards to anyone, let alone one of its own citizens?
For anyone who thinks that its fine that Padilla was tried and sentenced but the Judge made a snarky comment so it’s all better because of a look of stern disapproval and a wagged finger at the prosecution, I’m telling you it’s not okay. That this was done to Padilla, whether he was a bad guy or not, means that it can be done to you, your child, your parent, or your spouse. Would a snarky disapproving comment from the Judge satisfy you that justice was done when the government violated essentially every fundamental principle of fairness and due process if it was your kid that got tortured, held incommunicado for years, and then tried on illegally obtained evidence and sentenced to 17 years of hard time?
Utter disgrace hardly begins to cover it.
Face
Damn, incertus beat me to it. Exactly. They didn’t even prosecute his ass for the friggin reason they locked him up!
Next time you get arrested for DUI, see what happens to your case if they lock you away for 3 years, then try and prosecute you for attempted manslaughter. Judge tosses that like a salad.
But for some reason, if you remove “DUI” and replace it with “made some bad friends overseas”, the whole 4th Amendment gets chucked.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
It got chucked in this case because the administration was stonewalling and the court had to follow procedure. Don’t think the court fucked this one up, they played it by the book, even if they could’ve rebuked the gov’t a little better.
The next time this happens, the stonewalling will be far harder to do, and the court will have it’s eyes on the clock.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
See, I think we should be happy about this. Here’s the tally I got:
– When
The Missing LinkBush decided to shit all over Habeas Corpus, he did so on the back of an attempted terrorist. Lucky.– When the administration tried to get in bullshit evidence, it was rejected. Success.
– When the administration tried to proceed without the bullshit evidence, the unsupported charges were rejected. Success.
– When the administration stonewalled it, the court didn’t buckle. Success.
– The court took notice of what was known about Padilla’s detention and rebuked it. Success.
– The court set a precedent for this attempt of prolonged detention. Success.
– The court still sent an attempted-terrorist to jail for longer than a decade. Success.
I’m liking this particular court.
The Court of Appeals DC district has me fucking scared, though.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Yeah, it is awfully difficult to figure it out, if you are severely retarded.
Oh, I know, Jose was just a innocent little gangbanging convicted murderer who converted to The Religion Of Peace. And like all poor, downtrodden, ex-con converts, he managed to somehow obtain plane tickets to Egypt, Yemen, and Pakistan, where he happened upon some weary travelers who turned out to be Al Qaeda trainers! What a coincidence! After signing his name on documents which I’m sure he didn’t know were Al Qaeda applications (!), this peaceful Muslim whitewashed his American passport (hmmmm, why would he want to get rid of those travel stamps?), left his pregnant wife (his second one — the first, American wife was left in the US after he converted) and headed off for Afghanistan to live with Al Qaeda for a year. To teach English. Even though he barely spoke it himself. Even though he was a high school dropout.
So he returned to America in 2002 like any other returning citizen, carrying his shaving kit, a couple magazines… over $10,000 in U.S. currency given to him by his al Qaeda handlers (you never know when you might not be able to find an ATM!)… a cell phone provided to him by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s right-hand man… and the e-mail address for AQ baddie Amar al-Beluki.
So the first question is: How far up your own ass must your head be to search for excuses for a murderer/traitor/terrorist?
The other question is: What have we learned from the Padilla trial? Answer: Better to kill them than to try them. And think: If dead, he would’ve been spared the harsh treatment that left him a (sob!) broken
Al Qaeda operativemess.Caidence (fmr. Chris)
(ugh.. formatting didn’t work AT ALL. Sorry ’bout that.)
Dennis - SGMM
So the first question is: How far up your own ass must your head be to
search for excuses for a murderer/traitor/terroristto make you willing to throw away the Fourth and Fifth Amendments on the word of proven liars?Fixt
Tsulagi
You got pretty far up with your post, but what’s your record?
4tehlulz
Go for it.
Lawrence
I dunno, looking at the rehabilitation that the ghosts of Stalin and Lenin are seeing out east, I suspect Putin’s buddy, Dubya’s face will replace Mt. Rushmore.
I’m worried that all Dubya really did was open the floodgates through which all the other totalitarian/authoritarian types will wander through (Huckabee/Hillary/McCain…etc…)
And hell, can you really fault anyone but us Americans, hell, even Jesse Helms got freaked out when Dubya tried to tell us he was more like Putin than George Washington, but did we listen…Noooooooooo….
Ho Hum
Tax Analyst
Shorter Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and
LambchopPigFlop: Who needs that pesky Bill of Rights? It only protects Tarra-rists anyway. What an arse-hole.Svensker
Don’t ya just love the sound of a true patriot in the morning? So dedicated to the Constitution, so revved up to stand for the Bill of Rights. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” sends a thrill down this patriot’s spine, that can only be matched by the stirring words: “Trial? We don’t need no friggin trial. Just kill them all.” I think Tom and Ben would have been proud to know ya. I certainly can barely stand the honor.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
See, there’s your head-up-the-ass problem in full display. If you doubt that Padilla was an AQ-trained terrorist, then there is nothing those of us in the real world can do to help you. You may continue to live in your fantasy world where poor recently-converted Muslim ex-cons magically end up in Taliban Afghanistan, “teaching English.”
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
We’ve always killed enemy soldiers (even when they were our countrymen, brothers, and cousins) with no Constitutional trauma, and we always will.
bob
In the end, Padilla was found guilty of thinking and talking about a crime, not committing one. We’ll never know the truth. But we do know that the Bush administration violated every law regarding the treatment of the accused. This was an American citizen with rights, whether you like it or not. This gives a lie to the excuse that we don’t give “illegals” rights, we don’t give them to our citizens either. Fuck ANYONE who thinks this was right in ANY way.
RSA
I think the idea is that having the punishment precede the trial and conviction is unjust. There’s also the question of how the government can have been so incompetent as to be able to state with certainty that Padilla was an al Qaeda-trained terrorist and yet not be able to present the evidence in court. I’m sure there’s a good explanation somewhere. . .
Jess
Nice, John! I think I might frame this one…
jack fate
Welcome to the new
SecurityPolice State. Ruled by cowards and full-blown pussies afraid of their own shadows.Equal Opportunity Cynic
In common parlance, those seem to be equivalent. Maybe grumpy realist will join Andrew Sullivan and me in reclaiming the term, but we’re struggling uphill against mounds of evidence that conservative is now shorthand for fascist.
AnotherBruce
History will not look kindly on those pikers
Fuck what history will think, they should be imprisoned now for shitting on the constitution instead of fulfilling their oath to defend it.
We’ve always killed enemy soldiers
Killing an enemy soldier in battle is one thing, killing and torturing a defenseless man is another. It’s amazing how Stalinist that conservatives have become, he would have heartily approved of your methods. I’m so glad that your hero Reagan won the cold war so that we can use Soviet methods of interrogation.
Beej
Something’s been troubling me. Maybe someone here can shed some light. I’m well aware of where the Repug candidates stand on Gitmo, torture, the rollback of the Bill of Rights, etc. What I haven’t heard is the Democratic candidates’ responses to a direct question about what they will do to undo the damage the Bush administration has done to the Constitution and the Geneva conventions. Have these questions been asked in any on the Democratic debates?
I’m a cynical so-and-so. I find it hard to believe that someone who craves power the way a presidential candidate has to crave power is going to rush right in and cede power from the executive branch.
4tehlulz
lol “we”
Cyrus
I don’t see someone disputing that. Can you quote them? Or link to them?
On a related note, you do understand what the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution say, and why they were written, don’t you?
jack fate
Is that the same real world™ where Saddam Hussein (and now Iran) was the biggest threat to American security since the British in 1812? The same real world were “we don’t torture” means we send people who haven’t been convicted of anything to other rogue nations to have them boiled alive? (Sometimes the waterboarding doesn’t quite cut it, eh?)
Grow up, coward.
Timb
Whenever the Protein Wisdom guy comes around, hilarity and a fine understanding of Constitutional law follow!
How one can say he is in favor of conservative government and defend this is beyond me. It would as ridiculous as if a “conservative” defended McCarthy-ism or espoused locking Japanese in concentration camps as a tool in the “war on terror”!
Wait! You’re kidding! That actually happened?
TenguPhule
We?
Your Gutless brethren have been on the other side every time, Tory.