Jose Padilla's conviction
Jose Padilla was convicted yesterday on terrorism support charges, after spending five years in legal limbo. His guilt or innocence long ago stopped being the primary issue in this case; rather, the issue has been whether we as a society are willing to allow United States citizens to be "disappeared" into a military gulag and then tortured.
The eventual answer should be a resounding "No," but I'm not holding my breath.
Jeralyn at TalkLeft had this to say about the verdict:
I'm dismayed that a jury would come back with a guilty verdict after a day and a half of deliberation in a trial where the evidence took three months to present.
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It takes longer than that to comprehend the jury instructions.
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I doubt this jury bothered to review the evidence or the instructions. They didn't have time in a day and a half. It sounds to me like they took a straw vote shortly after picking a foreman and all were in agreement, so they went right to the verdict forms. I think they went on their gut feeling and emotion, not on the evidence or the law as instructed.
Along the same lines, today's WaPo editorial describes it this way:
Mr. Padilla was, in short, "disappeared" into a system with methods we object to in the strongest terms when they are used in police states around the world.
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But every person held by the government -- U.S. citizen or not -- must have due process to challenge that detention. The presumption must be that U.S. citizens can rely on the federal courts to oversee their prosecutions. And Mr. Padilla's abhorrent disappearance into limbo should come to be remembered as an aberration never to be repeated.
His guilt or innocence is irrelevant. The fact that he was held incommunicado and tortured for two thirds of his pre-trial detention period should offend every one of us.