Padilla Jury Opens Pandora`s Box

Jose Padilla`s conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory,
not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic)
Department`s theory that a US citizen can be convicted,
not because he committed a terrorist act but for
allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act.
By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department`s theory,
the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to
the rule of law and opened Pandora`s Box.

Anglo-American law is a human achievement 800 years in the making. Over
centuries law was transformed from a weapon in the hands
of government into a shield of the people from
unaccountable power. The Padilla Jury`s verdict turned
law back into a weapon.

The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic
jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors
dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue [Jury
Convicts Jose Padilla of Terror Charges, By
Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, August 17,
2007] It was a jury primed to be psychologically and
emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate
for a conviction for which there was little, if any,
supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required
that they strike a blow for America against terrorism.
No member of this jury was going to return home to
accusations of letting off a person who has been
portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years.

The "evidence" against Padilla consists of three items: (1) seven
intercepted telephone conversations, (2) a 10-year old
non-relevant video of Osama bin Laden, and (3) an
alleged application to a mujahideen (not terrorist)
training camp with Padilla`s fingerprints. We will
examine each in turn.

The International Herald Tribune and Associated Press reported in detail on
the telephone intercepts (June 19, 2007):

 "Accused al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was never overheard using
purported code words for violent jihad in intercepted
telephone conversations and spoke often about his
difficulties in learning Arabic while studying in Egypt,
the lead FBI case agent testified Tuesday. The
questioning of FBI Agent James T. Kavanaugh by Padilla
attorney Michael Caruso focused on seven intercepted
telephone calls on which Padilla`s voice is heard mostly
talking about his marriage and his studies but never
about Islamic extremism.  . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh
if Padilla ever was heard using what prosecutors say
were code words for violent jihad . . . `No, he does
not,` Kavanaugh replied. . . . Caruso asked Kavanaugh if
Padilla was ever overheard discussing jihad training.
`No jihad training that I`ve seen,` Kavanaugh said. . .
. `He`s not referring to anything here but studying
Arabic, correct? Study means study, right?` Caruso
asked. `That`s what they`re talking about,` Kavanaugh
testified." [
FBI
agent says Padilla doesn`t use jihad code on tapes,
Associated Press, June 19, 2007]

Despite the FBI`s testimony that the intercepted telephone messages
contained no incriminating evidence, the "patriotic"
jury accepted the federal prosecutor`s unsupported
accusation that there were hidden code words in the
message indicating that Padilla was a terrorist. After
all, who but a terrorist would want to learn Arabic?

The video of bin Laden had no relevance whatsoever to the charges in the
case. The video is 10-years old and makes no reference
to any of the defendants. Moreover, none of the
defendants were accused of ever being in contact with
bin Laden. The only purpose of the video was to arouse
in jurors fear, anger, and disturbing memories
associated with September 11, 2001. The fact that the
judge let prosecutors sway a fearful and vengeful
patriotic jury with emotion and passion rather than
evidence is obviously grounds for appeal.

Whoriskey reports that in their closing arguments prosecutors mentioned
al-Qaeda more than 100 times and urged jurors to think
of al-Qaeda and groups alleged to be affiliated with it
as an international murder conspiracy. Padilla
"trained to kill,"` Assistant US Attorney Brian
Frazier misinformed the jury in his closing statement.

Who Padilla wished to kill was never identified, but according to the
prosecutors he had been wanting to kill persons unknown
since 1998. Padilla was convicted for harboring alleged
intentions, not for committing any acts. Indeed, no
harmful acts are charged to Padilla. The incompetent
jury fell for the prosecutors` wild tale of a murder
conspiracy many years old that had no results.

As Andrew Cohen put it, Padilla and the two co-defendants were convicted on
the charge of "terrorist-wannabes" on the basis
of "evidence that federal authorities did not believe
amounted to a crime when it was gathered back before
2001." Cohen concludes: "it`s further proof that
if you can convince an American jury that a man in the
dock had anything to do with al-Qaeda, you can pretty
much bank on a conviction no matter how tenuous the
evidence" (washingtonpost.com,
August 16, 2007).]

The training camp application form is as suspect as any evidence can be.
Moreover, the prosecution had no evidence that Padilla
actually attended such a camp. Padilla was held
illegally for 3.5 years and tortured. At any time during
his illegal detention and torture, Padilla could have
been handed a form, thus tainting it with his
fingerprints.

Amy Goodman, the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, the Christian
Science Monitor and others have described how US
interrogators abused Padilla and destroyed his mind. To
expect a person as badly tortured and abused as Padilla
to retain the wits not to touch a piece of paper handed
to him, or forced into his hands, is unreasonable.[
How
U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla,
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! August
17, 2007. ]

When Padilla was arrested five years ago in 2002, the US government charged
that he was about to set off a radioactive "dirty
bomb" in a US city that would kill tens or even
hundreds of thousands of Americans. The story was a
total lie, a fabrication designed to keep the fear level
high after 9/11 in order to keep support for the Bush
regime`s wars and domestic police state. None of the
charges on which Padilla was illegally held, during
those years before the US Supreme Court intervened and
ordered the Bush regime to release Padilla or bring him
to trial, were part of the charges on which Padilla was
tried.

There is little doubt that Padilla`s conviction, and probably also the
convictions of the two co-defendants, is a terrible
injustice. But the damage done goes far beyond the
damage to the defendants. What the red, white, and blue
"Padilla Jury" has done is to overthrow the US
Constitution and give us the rule of men.

The US Constitution and Anglo-American legal tradition prevent indictments,
much less convictions, based on a prosecutor`s theory
that a person wanted to commit a crime in the past or
might want to in the future. Padilla has harmed no one.
There is no evidence that he made an agreement with any
party to harm anyone whether for money or ideology or
any reason. The FBI testified that the telephone calls
were innocuous. The bin Laden video was evidence of
nothing pertaining to the defendants. The piece of
paper, alleged to be a personnel form recovered from an
al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan is nothing but a piece of
paper and an assertion.

As Lawrence Stratton and I demonstrated in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions
(2000), the protective features of law had

been seriously eroded prior to the Bush regime`s
assault on civil liberty in the name of "the war on
terror." The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights
rest on Blackstone`s Commentaries on the Laws of
England. Blackstone explained law as the protective
principles against tyranny–habeas corpus, due process,
attorney-client privilege, no crime without intent, no
retroactive law, no self-incrimination.

Jeremy Bentham claimed that these protective principles were outmoded in a
democracy in which the people controlled the government
and no longer had reasons to fear it. The problem with
Blackstone`s "Rights of Englishmen," Bentham

said, is that these civil liberties needlessly limit
the government`s power and, thus, its ability to protect
citizens from crime. Bentham wanted to preempt criminal
acts by arresting those likely to commit crimes in
advance, before the budding criminals entered into a
life of crime. Bentham, like the Bush regime, the
"Padilla Jury," and the Republican Federalist
Society, did not understand that when law becomes a
weapon, liberty dies regardless of the form of
government. If they do understand, they prefer
unaccountable government power to individual liberty.

The incompetent "Padilla Jury" has done Americans and their liberty
far more damage than will ever be done by terrorists,
other than those in our criminal justice (sic) system
who now wield the powers that Bentham wanted to give
them.

The Padilla case was the way the Bush Justice (sic) Department implemented
its strategy for taking away the legal principles that
protect American citizens. Padilla is an American
citizen. He was denied habeas corpus and his rights to
an attorney and due process. He was tortured in an
attempt to coerce him into self-incrimination. In
treating Padilla in these ways, the US Department of
Justice (sic) violated both the US Constitution and
federal law. There is no doubt whatsoever that the
Justice (sic) Department committed far more crimes than
did Padilla.

By the time the Supreme Court finally intervened, Padilla was universally
known as the demonized "dirty bomber," an
"enemy combatant" who was arrested before he could
set off a radioactive bomb in a US city. The Injustice
Department could now simultaneously convict Padilla and
enshrine Benthamite law simply by appealing to fear and
patriotism. And that is what happened.

Under Benthamite law, the individual has no rights. The new calculus is
"the greatest good for the greatest number" as
determined by the wielders of power. On the basis of
this new law, not written by Congress but invented by
the Injustice Department and made precedent by the
"Padilla Jury" verdict, the US can lock up people
based on the percentage of crime committed by their
race, gender, income class, or ethnic group.

Under Benthamite law, people can be arrested and prosecuted for thought
crimes. Under Benthamite law, it is the government that
protects the people, not the Constitution and Bill of
Rights that protect the individual. Benthamite law makes
"advocacy speech," for example, a call for the
overthrow of the US government,

upheld in the 1969 Supreme Court decision,

Brandenburg v. Ohio, a serious federal crime.

The "Padilla Jury" has opened Pandora`s Box. Unless the conviction
is overturned on appeal, American liberty died in the
"Padilla Jury`s" verdict.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts
[email
him] was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.
He is the author of

Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider`s Account of
Policymaking in Washington;
 Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and

Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy,
and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of


The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and
Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name
of Justice. Click

here for Peter
Brimelow`s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts
about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.