Patterico's Pontifications

10/24/2007

Holy Land Foundation Retrial

Filed under: Law — DRJ @ 1:36 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

This Investor’s Business Daily editorial seems like a good analysis of the Holy Land Foundation terror trial. It concludes with this advice for the prosecutors:

“The evidence is clear. Now it’s up to the PC-plagued Justice Department to present it to jurors in a way that doesn’t make their eyes glaze over. Retry the case. Only this time, don’t try their patience.”

Read the whole thing, especially if you’re interested in why the IBD editor thinks a new judge might make a difference.

Normally, retrials are better for defendants than prosecutors but the reverse may be true in complex cases like this. The prosecutors should streamline their case and focus on specific, compelling evidence. There won’t be 197 counts, either. Whether the defendants should be convicted or not, this was too much information for any jury to swallow, let alone digest.

— DRJ

12 Responses to “Holy Land Foundation Retrial”

  1. 197 counts. How many acquittals?

    whitd (10527e)

  2. There were acquittals but I don’t know how many, and I haven’t seen a report with clear information on that. Have you?

    DRJ (8b9d41)

  3. I just see reports calling it a mistrial. But then you drill down and its not all counts that are mistrial on. I don’t know how many are acquittals. I wonder if some of those acquittals had been “guilty” if we’d still be calling it a “mistrial.”

    whitd (10527e)

  4. Seems like the prosecutors would run into double jeapardy problems if they try to combine the charges.

    alphie (99bc18)

  5. They should have been taken to Guantanamo.

    King Pandeen (87ec7f)

  6. Taking them back to trial on the charges they weren’t acquitted on won’t bring any double jeopardy problems.

    chaos (9c54c6)

  7. Juror William Neal, 33, who said his father worked in military intelligence, said that the government’s case had “so many gaps” that he regarded the prosecution as “a waste of time.”

    Additionally, he said, the case should raise questions about the administrative process that enabled the government to shut down Holy Land almost six years ago, long before criminal charges were brought.

    “That was a summary process that involved no trial, permitted the government to rely on secret evidence and barred the defendants from ever introducing their own evidence in court. Now we see when they are required to put their evidence on the table, the government is not able to prove a single charge,” Cole said.”

    blah (a01d4a)

  8. Some of the money sent to help the Indonesian tsunami victims would up in “terrorist” hands.

    http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1703452005

    Are we going to prosecute the Red Cross and its American donors next?

    alphie (99bc18)

  9. I don’t see how an organization that called itself a charity to hide its real purpose as a fund-raising and embezzlement operation for Hamas is comparable to some Boxing Day Tsunami relief money being stolen either outright or through deception by jihadis once it reaches its destination.

    Maybe you’d like to explain how the two situations are apparently similar alphie.

    chaos (9c54c6)

  10. Is it possible that the large number of counts was an attempt to make up with quantity what each one lacked with quality?

    Andrew J. Lazarus (336cc9)

  11. A great benefit of this trial was to place in the public record a document trove for people to trace the tendrils of terrorist influenced organizations in this country.

    Given recent moves by the Palestinian Authority to sever ties between some of these “charities” and Hamas explicitly due to terrorist activities, there may be even a better documented record for the retrial. Meanwhile, the sunshine certainly helps to disinfect.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  12. Terrorists?
    And you know Gerry Adams never came here on a fundraising drive.
    Never ever ever.

    blah (74fc41)


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