Judge Overrules Terror Suspect’s Request on Evidence (underwear bomber)

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

DETROIT — Overruling the wishes of a Nigerian man accused of trying to use explosives in his underwear to blow up a transcontinental airliner over Detroit last Christmas, a federal judge on Thursday ordered that the man’s standby lawyer receive documents related to the prosecution’s case. The defendant, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also waived his right to a speedy trial.

Earlier at the hearing in Federal District Court here, Mr. Abdulmutallab told Judge Nancy G. Edmonds that he wanted to continue representing himself and that he did not want the lawyer appointed by the court to advise him to receive discovery documents.

Mr. Abdulmutallab dropped his court-appointed lawyers on Sept. 13, citing poor representation, and signaled the possibility that he might plead guilty to some of the charges. Another pretrial hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12.

Anthony Chambers, the lawyer appointed to advise Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, told the judge that he had had multiple conversations with the defendant. In answers to questions from Judge Edmonds, the slight, soft-spoken Mr. Abdulmutallab said he was fluent in English, needed no translator and understood the charges against him, which include attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction to kill the nearly 300 people on Northwest Flight 253, bound for Detroit from Amsterdam.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/15bomber.html

[bemildred]

1. I gotta feeling they don't want Mr. Abdulmutallab to be able to have his say in court. nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. What would be "his say"?

I would hope courts are used to hear evidence not to serve as a speech platform for one side or the other.

[bemildred]

3. You feel a need to suppress his views?

If they are so nuts, that ought to be evident. If you can have a right to your say in the media, why not in court?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. His views depend upon his guilt or innocence

If he is innocent of trying to murder hundreds of innocent civilians let him have his say. Peaceful people have every right to speak their minds and the government is obligated to protect that right and if he is not guilty when he walks out of the court room he'll have plenty of opportunity to speak his mind.

But if he is guilty based on a fair hearing of the evidence then what he has to say is immaterial. If he is guilty he chose murder over speech so why should we turn a courtroom into a soapbox for someone who turned their back on their rights to destroy the rights of others? If he is guilty then he would have been dead if not for being technically inept.

Even without factoring guilty or non-guilt, courtrooms should be about evidence and the law, not people's personal opinions.

[bemildred]

5. Innocence or guilt is what the trial is to determine.

In a fair trial, you don't shape trial procedure based on an assumption about the outcome. Personal opinions ARE evidence. He will pay with his life or with life in prison for what he did, let him have his say.

[Nihil]

6. Err ... what?

> Innocence or guilt is what the trial is to determine.

> In a fair trial, you don't shape trial procedure based on
> an assumption about the outcome.

> He will pay with his life or with life in prison for what he did,
> let him have his say.

:crazy:

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. Um...

Facts are evidence. Opinions are opinions.

I'll assume you accidentally forgot to include "If he is found guilty" or similar qualifier to your last sentence; otherwise you might be seen as pre-judging even though you seem to speak (properly) against pre-judging.

If he is guilty WHY let him have his say? There are a million ways to have your say in the world WITHOUT murdering innocent people who just want to go on vacation/see family/make their next business meeting. IF he is guilty, based on facts and not our opinions, then he turned his back on having his say.

And the last thing he should be allowed to say is anything that would seek to justify/incite the deliberate murder of innocent people. One might as well consider into evidence why Nazis believed Jews were a threat to their national survival. Who cares and why should we listen; let's just deal with the evidence at hand.

[bemildred]

8. Opinions are evidence too, witnesses testify to their opinions in court all the time.

And their testimony becomes part of the "facts" of the case.

The right to have your say in court does not depend on you first showing you are innocent, that is simply bass-ackwards. If he says something that "would seek to justify/incite the deliberate murder of innocent people" then that would be good evidence of his guilty intention.

He is not guilty until/if the court convicts him of something. The question is not whether we should be forced to listen, the question is whether he has a right to speak at his own trial.

Why are we supposed to be so afraid of this man and what he might say? Is his message really that compelling? I think not.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. When have opinions ever been admissable as gaining equal weight to facts and law?

Last I heard juries are instructed to disregard opinion.

"The slut had it comin'," is an opinion but it shouldn't matter a single, solitary bit. I suppose a person accused of rape might have the right to say that in court as part of his argument but should the jury consider it as a "fact" in his defense to be weighed against physical evidence, witness testimony and the law?

[bemildred]

10. "Expert" evidence is quite common in trials?

It is true that it does not carry the weight of physical evidence, but nevertheless, trials are just chock full of people reporting on what they think.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. OK, bit that is a far cry from allowing a defendant to rationalize his actions

And why should a defendant be allowed to rationalize his actions though the evidence and law weighs against them?

If, in relation to the OP, the defense team wants to call an expert witness to testify that the evidence is not as the prosecution presents it, that's fine. That's why we have representative counsel and an adversarial trial system. If an expert witness can testify as to why a particular charge brought by the prosecution should not apply that too speaks to the credit of our system. I absolutely support such practices.

But expert testimony seems apples and oranges to a self-justifying polemic.

[bemildred]

12. If you silence him it will look like a kangaroo court, a show trial?

A trial is supposed to be an airing of all relevant information; the defendants opinions, motives, and "rationalizations" are most definitely relevant.

I don't understand why anybody is afraid to let him talk.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. It's not fear it's relevance

May I ask: If the defendant offered a "the US had it comin" polemic at his trial should it be considered as valid point of his defense?

Should it count towards exoneration, a reduction in sentence or as part of a confession usuable by the prosecution?