Thursday, April 24, 2008

Liberty City Seven Minus One: Third Trial

One of the Liberty City Seven were acquitted in the first trial. The other six weren't convicted, since there was a mistrial. That isn't the same as an acquittal.

The person who was acquitted isn't being tried again. The six who weren't acquitted are. That's because, so far, members of two juries couldn't decide to convict them.

Since one of them is free, it isn't the Liberty City Seven any more. I like "Liberty City Seven Minus One," But a Miami station is referring to them more efficiently as the "Liberty City 6: " 'Liberty City 6' To Be Tried For Third Time" (Local10.com (April 23, 2008)).

I've posted about these men before. You may find that I give more background than some of the news you read. (I think editors sometimes assume that readers are as intensely involved in the news as they are.)

Federal prosecutors asked for a third trial, because they say that these six men were working toward blowing up
  • Chicago's Sears Tower
  • Miami's FBI office
  • Other federal buildings
The six men had a good reason, it turns out, for wanting to demolish those buildings, killing quite a few people in the process. " 'In referring to America, Mr. Batiste said on tape he wanted to kill all the American devils,' assistant U.S. attorney Richard Gregorie said. 'In light of this, we plan to proceed with another trial.' "

In light of that, the Liberty City 6 defense might be well-advised to make this a freedom of expression case. Or maybe freedom of religion. The seven are Muslim, sort of. Enough for a 'profiling' accusation to be tossed around.

Now, someone's declared another reason for why the Feds are down on the Liberty City 6. The Local10.com article reveals:

"The families of the defendants left the federal courthouse in downtown Miami without commenting, except for Pierre Augustine, whose two sons are among the accused.

" 'I don't know why they have to put them in jail,' Augustine told reporters. 'The reason why is because they're black, no matter what. (They have already gone through) two trials. Now they have to go to the third one. That makes no sense.' "

My guess is that, given the mix of evidence and assumptions, there's going to be another mistrial. But, I could be wrong.

And, I hope I am wrong. There are quite a few people who fervently want "to kill all the American devils" - and I think it is high time that American courts and juries start looking more at what defendants did, and less on who their ancestors were.

Related posts, on tolerance, bigotry, racism, and hatred.

2 comments:

Conservative Hawk said...

Recently, I added your site as a link on my "Conservative Blogs" page. I would like to know if you have a blogroll or a links page, if you would please ad my link to your page. My site is conservativehawk dot com. Your link may be found at under the "Conservative Blogs" page by clicking the tab at the top.

Thank you.

Brian H. Gill said...

Conservative Hawk,

I've added your blog (with the URL you designated) to this blog's blogroll.

Thank you for for the link, and for alerting me that the sidebar "Another War-on-Terror Blog" has gotten crowded, and needs navigational help.

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.