Padilla's lawyers ask for criminal charges to be dropped

[struggle4progress]

Posted on Fri, Oct. 06, 2006
By Vanessa Blum
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
(MCT)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - ...

"The government's conduct vis-a-vis Mr. Padilla is a stain on this nation's character, and through its illegal conduct, the government has forfeited its right to prosecute Mr. Padilla," his lawyers said in a legal motion filed this week.

In two additional motions, the lawyers argue the case should be dismissed because the government took too much time between arresting Padilla and charging him. They contend Padilla's ability to defend himself is compromised as a result of the delay and the mental trauma he suffered.

Defense lawyers claim the government's tactics constitute torture and were "designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and, ultimately, the loss of will to live." ...

Padilla is charged with participating in a North American terror cell and traveling to the Middle East for military training. According to Padilla's attorneys, the former Broward County resident spent 1,307 days in a 9-by-7-foot cell in an isolated unit of the brig. Sometimes he would be left for hours with his wrists and ankles bound to a chain around his torso, his lawyers state. At night, guards kept him awake with bright lights and loud noises ...

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/15698867.htm

[Kagemusha]

1. What's the counter-argument?

He had it real good compared to Arar's trip to Syria?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

2. K & R this remarkable news. Padilla, the domestic terrorist posterboy,

may walk.

It sounds as if his lawyer has a pretty airtight case. MKJ

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Memo to the Office of the Attorney General of the United States:

How about a little habeas corpus, assholes?!!

[leesa]

4. They never had a case against him but they can't admit it.

They haven't sucessfully tried any of these so-called "terrorists"

[Maat]

5. This recent law graduate predicts ... he ends up walking.

I'll bet the judge will grant this.

His treatment has always been unconstitutional.

This will be a HUGE defeat for this Mis-Administration.

[struggle4progress]

8. Dunno. The courts have been pretty cowardly in this case.

The govt seized Padilla, an American citizen, on American soil in May 2002, and then claimed it had no obligation to grant him the usual rights of a criminal suspect. While the legality of holding him was first being litigated, the govt moved Padilla to another state to argue he was now out of the jurisdiction of the court and was an "enemy combatant." No judge with a backbone would have stood for such "dark of night" tactics but it passed without much comment. A long jurisdictional argument followed, associated with the habeas petition, as a result of which SCOTUS sided with the Administration that the relocation of Padilla required filing in SC rather than NY. This meant that after more two years in jail, Padilla had to start his case over again, essentially from the beginning, and did not preclude the possibility that the govt would move him indefinitely often, requiring an endless chain of refilings. Another year passed, during when an appeals court ruled the govt could detain Padilla without charges. As this moved towards SCOTUS, the govt dropped the "enemy combatant" claim, filed charges unrelated to the original "dirty bomb" tales, and SCOTUS then refused to hear the appeal from the lower ruling that Padilla could be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant. At this point, Padilla had been in custody for three and a half years and was forced to restart his attempt to free himself from scratch, this time in the context of novel criminal charges which had not been raised prior.

Presumably, given the history, if the charges seem unlikely to succeed, the govt will drop the prosecution, relocate Padilla to yet another jurisdiction, relabel him an enemy combatant, and force him to restart his march through the courts again. There seems to me no reason to be optimistic of the courts, insofar as they have been packed with rightwing authoritarians and have shown essentially unlimited patience with the Admionistration's tactics.

[gratuitous]

6. Prosecution's response to defense motion

Oh ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease your honor, DON'T dismiss our case! Do you know how bad this will make us look?

In the alternative, the prosecution reminds the court that it's in the president's sole discretion to name anyone an enemy combatant, and by dismissing the charges against Padilla, the court will be in the running to become the first person so named.

Respectfully submitted,

The Government
(Motto: "Don't f&*# with us.")

[dailykoff]

7. Who pays when Padilla sues for mega-millions

as well he should? Who pays when all the other wrongly arrested and TORTURED not-terrorists across the globe, or their survivors, :cry: sue for mega-millions?

Who pays when all the survivors of US genocide and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan sue for mega-millions?

It won't be Halliburton, that's for sure.

[struggle4progress]

9. The cowardly courts will throw out such lawsuits. If al-Masri, the

innocent German imprisoned and tortured by the CIA, was unable to obtain judicial remedy on vague grounds of "state secrets," no such lawsuits will survive:

Lawsuit Against CIA Is Dismissed
Mistaken Identity Led to Detention

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006; Page A13

A federal judge yesterday threw out the case of a German citizen who says he was wrongfully imprisoned by the CIA, ruling that Khaled al-Masri's lawsuit poses a "grave risk" of damage to national security by exposing government secrets.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria acknowledged that Masri "has suffered injuries" if his allegations are true and that he "deserves a remedy." Sources have said Masri was held by the CIA for five months in Afghanistan because of mistaken identity. Masri says he was beaten, sodomized and repeatedly questioned about alleged terrorist ties ..

But Ellis said the remedy cannot be found in the courts. Masri's "private interests must give way to the national interest in preserving state secrets,'' the judge wrote in dismissing the lawsuit filed last year against former CIA director George J. Tenet and 10 unnamed CIA officials ..

The ruling was a victory for Justice Department prosecutors, who had invoked the once rarely cited state-secrets privilege to argue for dismissal. Created in the 1950s, it allows the government to urge courts to dismiss cases on the grounds of damage to foreign policy or national security. The privilege has been used far more frequently since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/18/AR2006051802107.html

[freethought]

10. Jose Padilla-Profile of Justice Department F___k Up!

Excuse the language. The Padilla case was politics. It was not justice and it certainly wasn't a shining example of investigative work. Had the Ashcroft justice department had a lick of sense they should have tailed and put Padilla under surveillance or quietly apprehended him and convinced him to be an informer. As it was, Padilla was a small fish, but as a saying goes "small fish will usually bring in bigger fish". But the Justice department needed to create hysteria and fear at the behest of the White House.
THE FBI APPREHENDS A MAN WHO WAS GOING TO SET OFF A "DIRTY" BOMB!
Oh dear! What was the bomb made of?
Well, he didn't exactly have a bomb.
What? What kind of radioactive material did he have?
Actually, he didn't have any radioactive material either.
Did he have access to radioactive agents?
Uh, no.
What did he have?
He had about $10K in cash on him.
Oh.
I personally don't think the judge will dismiss the case, but it is in the realm of possibility that he could walk.
The prosecutors could say that, if released, he could be a menace. Somehow, with his name and face being up on TV and on the Internet he is now damaged goods as an informant. No covert operative is going to get near him.
Just imagine what kind of a blow it would be to * if the judge did dismissed the case. The whole situation has become a joke that really isn't funny. Chances are Alberto the Weasel will find some spin around this.