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Jose Padilla Conviction 08-20-07
Jose Padilla Conviction 08-20-07
Jose Padilla was initially arrested in 2002 at the O’Hare International Airport
in Chicago, with a lot fanfare by the U.S. Justice Department, on a charge
that he was involved in a plot to plant a radiological “dirty bomb” in the
United States. He was declared an “enemy combatant” and transferred to
military custody at a naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Reportedly,
he was subjected to physical torture, relentless interrogations, and a litany of
other physical/psychological abuses and deprivations over the next three
years before both military and intelligence investigators, as well as federal
prosecutors, concluded there was no “dirty bomb” plot.
Padilla was then turned over to federal authorities in Florida who charged
him, along with two co-defendants, with conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and
maim persons in a foreign country in violation 18 U.S.C. § 956(a)(1) and
conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists in violation of both 18
U.S.C. § 371 and 18 U.S.C. § 2339A to commit a substantive offense under
18 U.S.C. § 2339A. 18 U.S.C. § 371 prohibits conspiracies to commit a
specific offense, as defined by the federal criminal code, against the United
States. An 18 U.S.C. § 2339A offense consists of providing material
support and resources or concealing the nature, location, source, or
ownership of material support and resources, or concealing the nature,
location, source or ownership of material support and sources with the
knowledge and intention that they will be used to facilitate any of the several
enumerated offenses.
Padilla was convicted on August 16, 2007 of one count under § 956(a)(1)
and one count under § 2339(A). The § 956(a)(1) conviction carries a
maximum penalty of life imprisonment. The Padilla terrorism conviction,
reported the Washington POST, handed “a courthouse victory to the Bush
administration, which had originally sought to imprison [Padilla] without a
criminal trial.”
The Bush administration was indeed jubilant. “The conviction of Jose
Padilla – an American who provided material support to terrorism and
trained for violent jihad – is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the
threat posed by terrorists and their supporters,” U.S. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales said.
The “criminal court system” was not sympathetic to Padilla’s torture claims.
He was arrested in Chicago on May 8, 2002 pursuant to a “material witness”
warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York in connection with a grand jury investigation following the
September 11 attacks. President Bush on June 9, 2002 declared Padilla an
“enemy combatant” and instructed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to
take custody of him. That same day Rumsfeld had Padilla transferred to the
navy brig in South Carolina.
The United States Supreme Court in United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423
(1973) held, in dicta, that the court “may some day be presented with a
situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous
that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from
invoking judicial process to obtain a conviction.” Id., at 431-32. The Russell
court found that the government conduct in that case did not rise to that due
process level.
In Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484 (1976) the defendant attempted
to use the Russell dicta to quash law enforcement misconduct, but the
Supreme Court held that even “[i]f the police engage in illegal activity in
concert with a defendant beyond the scope of their duties the remedy lies,
not in freeing the equally culpable defendant, but in prosecuting the police
under the applicable provisions of state or federal law.” Id., at 490.
In addressing the Padilla motion to dismiss based on the Russell dicta, the
district court examined the difficulty of applying the outrageous government
conduct doctrine:
The Government argued that Padilla’s motion failed “as a matter of law.”
The district court said it was compelled to accept as true Padilla’s “claims of
abuse and torture at the Navel Brig…” Id. The court then noted that Padilla
had failed to provide the court with a single case where charges had been
dismissed because of “outrageous government conduct.” Id. And while
standing alone this failure did not defeat Padilla’s motion, the court pointed
out that the cases cited by his defense counsel had held that the outrageous
government conduct doctrine can be invoked only when defendant can
demonstrate “both substantial government involvement in the offense and a
passive role by the defendant.” United States v. Gutierrez, Jr., 343 F.3d 415
(5th Cir. 2003). See also: United States v. Blood, 435 F.3d 612 (6th Cir. 2006)
[“to establish outrageous government conduct a defendant must show that
‘the government’s involvement in creating his crime was so great that a
criminal prosecution for the crime violates the fundamental principles of due
process’.”].
In rejecting Padilla’s claim of outrageous government conduct, the district
court concluded:
First, the fact that the governmental conduct occurred at a time and
place removed from the crimes charged makes the remedy Padilla is
seeking considerably more attenuated and arbitrary. Short of resorting
to a ‘two wrongs make a right’ judicial process, it is difficult for this
Court to ascertain how the remedy sought emanates from the infirmity
defendant describes. This is considerably distinguishable from a
government entrapment scenario, where the crime that the defendant
is charged with is the crux of the outrageous government conduct
claim.FN7
The district court noted that if were to take Padilla’s argument to its “logical
extreme,” it would effectively extend an amnesty to him “for any uncharged
crime so long as the government violated [his] due process rights at some
prior point.” Id. The trial court held that it was not prepared to embrace such
a radical notion.
Despite the fact that the torture issue got lost in the “criminal court system,”
civil libertarians tried to put the best face on Padilla’s conviction. The
Washington POST quoted Howard Simon, executive director of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Florida as saying: “This trial clearly
undermines the Bush administration’s unfounded fear that terrorists cannot –
in their view – be tried in criminal courts. [This verdict proves] that the Bush
administration should close Guantanamo and pursue terrorists in the
criminal justice system, not outside the confines of the rule of law.”
Padilla’s mother was more to point. “No evidence, and they found him
guilty,” said Estela Lebron.
The POST reported that there was only one “key piece of physical evidence”
against Padilla – a “mujahideen data form” which had been recovered in an
al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and bore Padilla fingerprints and some of his
personal background information. The POST added that “the other evidence
was the wiretapped calls, of which Padilla’s voice is heard on seven. These,
however, offered few specific clues of his intentions.”
The truth of the matter is that the Government of the United States held Jose
Padilla in a military detention without affording him any constitutional or
civil rights for 3 ½ years, subjecting him to physical and psychological
torture, before putting him on trial in civilian court five years later and
finding him guilty without presenting any significant evidence of guilt.
The Padilla conviction was not a “victory” for the Bush administration. It
was, in fact, a defeat of civil liberties. The Padilla case, and so many of the
other “enemy combatant” cases so designated by the Bush administration,
will one day be recognized as a blight on our constitutional system of
government.