Terrorism and the Constitution

The recent terrorism events in Boston make us all afraid of those who would kill us for our beliefs, for our society, for our actions around the world, or for seemingly no reason at all. When the opportunity arises to exact some measure of revenge on terrorists (either in the form of torture or the use of our military), Americans overwhelmingly support such demonstrations of power and anger. In the context of the criminal prosecution, our society is governed by the United States Constitution, the 27 amendments thereto, and the case law that interprets that document. At times like these, the impediments on government power (like the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments or cases like Miranda, Mapp, Weeks, or Gideon) infuriate us because they seem to favor those who would hurt us, rather than protect the victims of terror.

There are many good reasons why we should follow the rule of law, even when we are under attack. The most important reason is that to violate our own law diminishes the legitimacy of our justice system. There is never a time when cheating the system is good thing. When we cheat, we justify our misconduct by arguing that the bad we are seeking to punish is worse than the bad we are willing to do.  That is the definition of moral relativism and should not be the credo of a great democracy. To decide to violate the law in any particular case requires an individual to decide which is the right case in which to cheat. Who then chooses the "decider", and by what criteria will that person be chosen? If "majority rules" is the electing process, then the majority will always dominate all minorities, and the mob will rule. If a individual is given the power to decide when he can abuse power to deal with an accused person, such power always will eventually be misused. It is only where the law itself is supreme that the arbitrariness of individual decision making is reduced.

Second, the validity of Constitution and the Amendments have stood the test of time as honest pillars of a free society. For over 200 years, the American criminal justice system worked without torture or unlawful searches, with the right to remain silent and to be charged by indictment issued by a grand jury, with the right to a speedy and public jury trial and the right to counsel. The landmark cases from the Supreme Court that made clear these rights have also withstood court review and use by the police and prosecutors. For more than 50 years, Miranda ruled that when a right like the right to remain silent is so fundamental a barrier to improper police conduct, the police may not use at trial evidence obtained in violation of the rule. That is why Miranda warnings must be issued before custodial interrogation begins (but is not required at an arrest, contrary to what is seen on television and most people's understanding of the law).

Finally, the "Common Law" system of justice that America inherited from the English courts makes changes in the law an uncommon event. Stare decisis (literally "let the decision stand") is the practice of deciding a case based on how similar cases were decided by courts before. When a courts approves a particular procedure used by law enforcement, then all other police officers and prosecutors can do the same thing if they think their fact pattern matches the one from the prior case. But two fact patterns are rarely the same. And so each new police procedure gets stretched in a new direction over time, sometimes well beyond the original fact pattern approved by the Supreme Court. Since the Supreme Court takes so few cases, it falls to the appellate courts to approve or disapprove novel police procedures. These courts often decide appeals on whether there was "an abuse of discretion" by the trial court below in deciding to approve a new procedure. Even when an appellate court reviews the law relied upon by the trial court, it gives great deference to the "findings of fact" of the lower court, and that is precisely where terrible events encourage the stretching of the law. "Bad facts make bad law" means that when the events are terrible, we justify bad (unlawful) police work and bad (unlawful) prosecution decisions as necessary to prosecute. But for the entire history of this Country there have been terrible events, threats to our Country, and evil men. Many of these threats were as bad as that which we face today with the bombings of the Boston Marathon, and yet our nation and its criminal justice system survived. To cheat the criminal justice system and deny the accused due process and equal protection of the law is to cheat America of its well-earned reputation for honest justice.

There are good reasons to inquire of a terrorist what other threats may exist and of which he may be aware. It could make America safer to obtain timely information and to get the information to law enforcement officials so that they can eliminate the danger. But there is no reason under the Constitution to allow such evidence at trial in violation of the "exclusionary rule" created under Weeks v. United States in 1914. When evidence is obtained in violation of constitutional requirements, it may not be used at trial. Since the Bill of Rights' creation of this country's criminal justice system in 1791, and the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1867, nothing has been as effective at reducing overzealous and improper law enforcement as this rule. Terrible cases tempt us to obtain evidence illegally, but we must resist the temptation lest the whole criminal justice system loses its credibility.



N.B. Below is the FBI memorandum issued in late 2010 (and printed on NYTimes.com on March 25, 2011) which purports to authorize the violation of the Fifth Amendment's and Miranda v. Arizona's requirement that an accused person has a right to remain silent and may only waive that right after being advised that he has the right to remain silent and the right to counsel.

F.B.I. Memorandum

Below is the text of an unsigned, internal F.B.I. memorandum, obtained by The New York Times, that provides guidance to agents about when, in the course of interrogating a terrorism suspect, they should advise the suspect of his so-called Miranda rights to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning.

U.S. Department of Justice

Federal Bureau of Investigation

October 21, 2010

Custodial Interrogation for Public Safety and Intelligence-Gathering Purposes of Operational Terrorists Inside the United States [1]

Identifying and apprehending suspected terrorists, interrogating them to obtain intelligence about terrorist activities and impending terrorist attacks, and lawfully detaining them so that they do not pose a continuing threat to our communities are critical to protecting the American people. The Department of Justice and the FBI believe that we can maximize our ability to accomplish these objectives by continuing to adhere to FBI policy regarding the use of Miranda warnings for custodial interrogation of operational terrorists [2] who are arrested inside the United States:

1. If applicable, agents should ask any and all questions that are reasonably prompted by an immediate concern for the safety of the public or the arresting agents without advising the arrestee of his Miranda rights. [3]

2. After all applicable public safety questions have been exhausted, agents should advise the arrestee of his Miranda rights and seek a waiver of those rights before any further interrogation occurs, absent exceptional circumstances described below.

3. There may be exceptional cases in which, although all relevant public safety questions have been asked, agents nonetheless conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat, and that the government's interest in obtaining this intelligence outweighs the disadvantages of proceeding with unwarned interrogation. [4] In these instances, agents should seek SAC approval to proceed with unwarned interrogation after the public safety questioning is concluded. Whenever feasible, the SAC will consult with FBI-HQ (including OGC) and Department of Justice attorneys before granting approval. Presentment of an arrestee may not be delayed simply to continue the interrogation, unless the defendant has timely waived prompt presentment.

The determination whether particular unwarned questions are justified on public safety grounds must always be made on a case-by-case basis based on all the facts and circumstances. In light of the magnitude and complexity of the threat often posed by terrorist organizations, particularly international terrorist organizations, and the nature of their attacks, the circumstances surrounding an arrest of an operational terrorist may warrant significantly more extensive public safety interrogation without Miranda warnings than would be permissible in an ordinary criminal case. Depending on the facts, such interrogation might include, for example, questions about possible impending or coordinated terrorist attacks; the location, nature, and threat posed by weapons that might post an imminent danger to the public; and the identities, locations, and activities or intentions of accomplices who may be plotting additional imminent attacks.

As noted above, if there is time to consult with FBI-HQ (including OGC) and Department of Justice attorneys regarding the interrogation strategy to be followed prior to reading the defendant his Miranda rights, the field office should endeavor to do so. Nevertheless, the agents on the scene who are interacting with the arrestee are in the best position to assess what questions are necessary to secure their safety and the safety of the public, and how long the post-arrest interview can practically be delayed while interrogation strategy is being discussed.

[1] This guidance applies only to arrestees who have not been indicted and who are not known to be represented by an attorney. For policy on interrogation of indicted defendants, see Legal Handbook for Special Agents (LHBSA) Section 7-3.2 For policy on contact with represented persons, see LHBSA Sections 7-4.1 and 8-3.2.2.

[2] For these purposes, an operational terrorist is an arrestee who is reasonably believed to be either a high-level member of an international terrorist group; or an operative who has personally conducted or attempted to conduct a terrorist operation that involved risk to life; or an individual knowledgeable about operational details of a pending terrorist operation.

[3] The Supreme Court held in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984), that if law enforcement officials engage in custodial interrogation of an individual that is "reasonable prompted by a concern for the public safety," any statements the individual provides in the course of such interrogation shall not be inadmissible in any criminal proceeding on the basis that the warnings described in Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966), were not provided. The court noted that this exception to the Miranda rule is a narrow one and that "in each case it will be circumscribed by the [public safety] exigency which justifies it." 467 U.S. at 657.

[4]The Supreme Court has strongly suggested that an arrestee's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is not violated at the time a statement is taken without Miranda warnings, but instead may be violated only if and when the government introduces an unwarned statement in a criminal proceeding against the defendant. See Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760, 769 (2003) (plurality op.); id. at 789 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); cf. also id. at 778-79 (Souter, J., concurring in the judgment); see also United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 641 (2004) (plurality opinion) ("[V]iolations [of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination] occur, if at all, only upon the admission of unwarned statements into evidence at trial."); United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 264 (1990) ("[A] violation [of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination] occurs only at trial.")

The Taste of a Death Sentence

In the world of the death penalty, there are a series of protocols that are put in place to make the execution of people more palatable. The condemned man is allowed a final visit from his family so that they can say goodbye to each other. The use of the three drug cocktail in lethal injections (the first to render the person unconscious, the second to stop his breathing, the third to stop his heart) is designed to remove the horror of hanging, shooting, or electrocuting a person. The offer of a pastor to hear a man's final confession and to offer solace could be to make the soon-to-be-decedent feel better or perhaps to make us feel better. So it is with the last meal. 

Several artists have created a visual media project of this event. Henry Hargreaves, a photographer, recreated each meal in a photograph with a blurb of the moment, describing who the condemned person was and what they requested. The exhibit is called "No Seconds", ironically terming the lack of time remaining and the lack of opportunity to have more of the meal:  His photographs can be seen here. Famous Last Meals is a website that also offers photographs and short thumbnail sketches of the crimes. 

Julie Green, an art professor in Oregon State University, created a pottery serving dish depicting the final meal, or a text of the circumstances of the meal, for over 500 final meals. The exhibit is called "The Last Supper" and is on display in Eugene, Oregon at the "Arts Center". Her story was recently described in the New York Times and can be found here (I have also printed it below). 

The question I pose is this: If we are making the moments before we execute someone as comfortable as possible, does that demonstrate our compassion by caring for a person in distress, or does it embody our lack of will to save any life, even that of one so unworthy of saving. Could we not do more for our own redemption by choosing life over death by sparing the death chamber of its next visitor. It has been written before us that "whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world." I think that our world could use more grace and less anger. 

Dish by Dish, Art of Last Meals
By KIRK JOHNSON

NYTimes.comPublished: January 25, 2013

CORVALLIS, Ore. — One man wanted only ice water as his last meal before execution. Another asked that his mother be allowed into the prison kitchen to make the chicken dumplings he loved. Another told the guards he had never had a birthday cake, so they bought him one, along with his formal last-meal request, a pizza. Some asked for nothing, or nothing special — a regular prison dinner, food from the vending machines, a cigarette and a soda. "The meals were so personal, they humanized death row for me," Julie Green said. In 1917 in Montana, a condemned man said in the hours before his death: “I have a bad taste in my mouth. I want an apple.”
Ms. Green has painted their stories — fittingly enough, on plates, in cobalt-blue paint fired to permanence — along with hundreds of other such chiaroscuro tales of food and death and choice, in a decade-long project she calls “The Last Supper.” This month, 500 of her plates, the largest show of her work ever mounted, went on display in the Arts Center, a former Episcopal church in this college town south of Portland, where Professor Green is an associate professor of art at Oregon State University.
That the world knows what a condemned person was served — indeed, that such information is often part of the narrative of the execution itself, posted on Web sites and in news articles from the prison — is what initially caught Professor Green’s attention.
“The meals were so personal, they humanized death row for me,” she said.
But as she worked — spending six months of each year on the project, and making about 50 plates a year — she came to see the choice of last meal as a window into the soul in an hour of crisis, and also into the strange rituals society has attached to the ultimate punishment.
“I’m a food person,” she said. “I grew up with great cooks and great food. Food has always been a celebratory thing for me. That’s part of why this whole thing is interesting to me, because of the contrast. It’s not a celebration.”
The number of executions has declined in the United States in recent years, from a modern-era high of 98 in 1999 to 43 in 2012. Texas, which has put more people to death than any other state since capital punishment was restored in 1976 by the United States Supreme Court, stopped offering special last meals to the condemned in 2011. But the number of Professor Green’s plates keeps growing: She plans to continue painting as long as there is a death penalty.
Some of the paintings are inspired by long-ago executions, described in news clippings — like the plates she did about two black boys, ages 15 and 16, sent to the electric chair in Mississippi in 1947 on murder charges. They were given fried chicken and watermelon, the records show. Whether they requested that meal is unknown, Professor Green said, but it was dutifully recorded, and so those images — so fraught with racial baggage — went onto plates.
Other plates were painted fresh from the news, and some were completed on the day of the execution itself. Most show predictable, even mundane meals: a hamburger and fries, enchiladas, steak and baked potatoes. Others come from a place that clearly spoke only to the condemned: Four olives and a bottle of wild-berry-flavored water for one, a jar of dill pickles for another. One man asked for “God’s Word.” Another wanted “justice, equality, world peace.”
The underlying and compelling theme of the work is choice. What do people who may have lived for years in prison with virtually no choices at all do with this last one they’re offered? Do they reach back for some comforting reminder of childhood? (Professor Green suspects as much in the cases of meals like macaroni and cheese or Spam.) Do they grasp for foods never tried, or luxuries remembered or imagined? (One condemned man ordered buffalo steak and sugar-free black walnut ice cream; another, fried sac-a-lait fish topped with crawfish étouffée.)
Even choosing not to choose has meaning, with some inmates apparently seeing the last-meal question as something they simply can’t face — answering it would be acknowledging their fate.
“No final meal request because he remained hopeful to the end that he would not be executed,” Virginia prison officials recorded about a man executed there in February 2009. The plate for that man has only text.
Making a condemned person’s last meal into art is a tricky proposition, given the fierce debate about capital punishment, and Professor Green said she had sometimes been criticized for doing it. In presenting shows and lectures about the work around the country, she has been accused of trying to capitalize on the death penalty — although the project, she says, is strictly not for profit. That she makes no secret of her opposition to the continuing practice of execution probably adds its own fuel, she said.
Some years back Professor Green exhibited about 100 plates at a food and arts center in Napa, Calif., that is now closed. “Folks standing in line for foie gras at one of the finest restaurants in the U.S. were confronted with final meals,” she said in an e-mail. Many responded positively, she added, “but others wrote that the exhibit was ruining their appetite.” One visitor called Professor Green a “stinky hippie” and told her to go back to Oregon. “I keep all the comment books,” she said.
But where some critics might see an unduly sympathetic portrait of people convicted of heinous crimes, David Huff, the executive director of the Arts Center in Corvallis, said he saw humanity with all its flaws and foibles. “I don’t think it excuses actions,” he said. “They may have done really bad things.”
“But regardless of what you think about it, you have to accept that these are people,” he added. “They were actual people with likes and dislikes — liking pizza and Coke, or shrimp.”
“The Last Supper” closes in Corvallis, Ore., on Feb. 16, and will then travel to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, in Eugene, Ore. 

New Direction for Identification Evidence in Criminal Trials

NJ Supreme Court Releases Eyewitness Identification Criteria for Criminal Cases

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently released expanded jury instructions, a new court rule, and a revised court rule relating to eyewitness identifications in criminal cases in response to its decision in 2011 on the topic. That unanimous decision, State v. Larry R. Henderson, revised the legal framework for evaluating and admitting eyewitness identification evidence and directed that revised jury charges be prepared to help jurors evaluate such evidence.  Henderson drew on an extensive review of reliable scientific evidence on human memory and the various factors that can affect the reliability of eyewitness identifications.

In discussing the new rules, Chief Justice Rabner wrote, “In all future criminal trials involving identification evidence in New Jersey, judges will rely on new model jury instructions that can be tailored to the facts of each case.  Jurors will then hear about relevant factors that may have affected the reliability of the identification evidence presented at trial. The instructions are designed to minimize the risk of wrongful convictions and help jurors reach informed, just decisions.” 

In Henderson, the Supreme Court revised the existing legal standard for assessing eyewitness identification evidence because the old standard had not offered an adequate measure for reliability, had not sufficiently deterred inappropriate police conduct, and had overestimated the jury’s ability to evaluate identification evidence. The opinion required that the current instructions to jurors on eyewitness identifications be expanded to address variables related to how law enforcement officers conduct identification events as well as important factors outside the control of law enforcement. To develop the necessary modern standards, the Supreme Court asked the Criminal Practice Committee and the Committee on Model Jury Charges, composed of judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and other legal practitioners, to draft proposed revisions to the jury charge and submit them for the Court’s review.

Before the New Jersey Supreme Court issued its opinion in Henderson, the New Jersey standard for determining the admissibility of eyewitness identification evidence had been derived from principles the U. S. Supreme Court set forth in Manson v. Brathwaite in 1977. Virtually all of the scientific research considered in the Henderson appeal emerged after Manson.

When published nearly a year ago, the Henderson decision attracted national attention for its review of current scientific evidence that addressed human memory and how an array of variables can affect and dilute memory and lead to misidentifications.

The new jury instructions caution that certain factors about an eyewitness’s circumstances at time of the offense could render the testimony less reliable. Those factors include the stress the eyewitness was under, the duration of the event, lighting, distance, the eyewitness’s focus on a weapon, and cross-racial identification. Other factors that jurors will consider include the procedures used by law enforcement during the actual identification process. The instructions require jurors to consider the composition of a lineup or photo array and whether any spoken word or gesture by the police could have suggested a specific defendant.

Under the new rules and jury instructions, jurors must weigh factors about the eyewitness’s circumstances at the time of the offense, along with law enforcement’s behavior when conducting identification procedures, to determine the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

The new jury instructions emphasize that any single factor or combination of factors does not mean the eyewitness is incorrect. “The ultimate issue of the trustworthiness of any eyewitness identification is for the jury to decide,” wrote Chief Justice Rabner. “Only with a fully informed and properly instructed jury can justice be served." 

This new line of jurisprudence stands in contrast to the Supreme Court analysis of the same problem. In a recent United States Supreme Court decision, Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 176 (2012)), the court refused to establish a new rule requiring courts to evaluate eyewitness identifications made in suggestive settings before submitting the identifications to a jury.

Ten federal circuits and 42 states allow expert witness testimony on the fallibility of eyewitness identification evidence. In a recent case, U.S. v. Owens, 682 F.3d 1358 (11th Cir. June 8, 2012) (per curiam), the court affirmed a conviction where the district court had refused to allow evidence of the flaws of eyewitness identification. In a remarkable and well-written dissent that accurately expresses the opinion of the supermajority of the national jurisprudence (but not the Eleventh Circuit), Judge Rosemary Barkett listed the complexities of this type of evidence. She wrote regarding the inconsistencies of the witness's descriptions of the perpetrator: 

"The literature suggests that such a change could be caused by the witness viewing a suspect's image in a photo array. However, this phenomenon cannot be explained by cross examining a lay witness, nor is it a matter of common intuition that viewing the suspect's image in more than one photo array can distort an eyewitness's actual memory of events. . . . Having been given the opportunity to change our court's position that appellate courts are never permitted to review for abuse of discretion the exclusion of expert testimony regarding the reliability of eyewitness identifications, we should avail ourselves of it. That isolated position, established thirty years ago [United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616 (5th Cir. 1982)], conflicts with all of the other circuits and all but five of the states that have considered the question. I cannot think of any reason, legal or logical, why such a ruling should not be subject to the same abuse of discretion standard as any other evidentiary ruling in a trial, especially in light of what we know today, thirty years later, about eyewitness identification. Our continued adherence to a rule that disfavors this form of testimony is indefensible in light of the science supporting its usefulness. Our doing so is particularly unjustifiable given that we do review the exclusion of polygraph evidence, which is widely condemned as unreliable by courts and experts! . . .The prior rule was decided on the premise that 'the problems of perception and memory can be adequately addressed in cross-examination and ... the jury can adequately weigh these problems through common-sense evaluation.' In the thirty years subsequent to the creation of our rule, however, over two-thousand studies on eyewitness memory have been published making clear that the premise of Thevis does not justify a categorical rule of non-review." 

"The ten other circuits and forty-two state courts that disagree with our approach have recognized that expert testimony can be helpful to the jury precisely because 'the conclusions of the psychological studies are largely counter-intuitive, and serve to "explode common myths about an individual's capacity for perception. This overwhelming body of scientific research, which has 'established beyond any doubt that eyewitness testimony has the potential to be dangerously unreliable,' and that 'eyewitness misidentification remains the leading cause of false convictions in the United States,' was unavailable when the rule was decided. The unreliability of eyewitness testimony is now widely recognized in the psychological literature and by law enforcement. Studies conducted in both experimental and real-world settings have revealed eyewitness misidentification rates varying between one-quarter and one-half of all identifications, depending on the factors being tested. At the same time, jurors remain uninformed of these causes of eyewitness errors and therefore are unable to evaluate their impact on the reliability of eyewitness testimony."

The law is often slow to accept the changing scientific, technological, medical, and even theological world around it. When society moves ahead of the law, it can lose respect for the law. This occurred, for example, when slavery was legal; when suffrage was denied based upon color or sex, and when crimes were defined without regard to the use of computers. On the other hand, the fact that the law does not easily move with the emotional tides of the day is also one of its strengths. Many of its basic precepts and definitions (for example, with regard to, murder, theft, contract, and real property law) have survived over thousands of years. Finally, the law is sometimes ahead of society, leading a reluctant public in the direction of a better and more just nation. New Jersey’s new rules fall into the final category; they presage an era of more efficient, and more accurate, criminal justice. (smb)

Complexities of Defending the Undefendable

On Saturday, January 19, 2013, Sam was a presenter at “Defending Terrorism Cases: A Brainstorming Conference,” a seminar in Philadelphia sponsored by the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF). The presenter list for the conference reads like a Who’s Who of the best and brightest minds practicing criminal defense in the United States today. Sam spoke about the voluminous discovery that often occurs in these highly complex cases, and he gave practitioners concrete and useful advice about how to handle that volume, as well as methods for enforcing a client’s Sixth Amendment rights when important documentary evidence is withheld or produced at a late date.

In the past twelve years, law enforcement across the United States has made it a strong priority to identify and thwart terrorist plots designed to harm American citizens and property. While this is a laudable goal, the court watchers have observed a very disturbing trend: the use of confidential informants who infiltrate Muslim communities and houses of worship, offering large amounts of money and other incentives to individuals to encourage them to engage in government-designed phony “plots.” Most members of these communities are peaceful, law-abiding citizens of sound mind who cast out the informants. Occasionally, however, offers of food and financial support to the poorest and most disaffected are too attractive to resist, and vulnerable members of the community find themselves charged with extremely serious crimes.

In some cases, individuals are charged with terrorism for donating money to charities that have no obvious ties to overseas organizations on the U.S. government’s terrorism watch list, but subsequently run afoul of the United States Department of State. In one such case, the donations were made as part of a major airlines' charity program for frequent flier miles. Such donations made either on the defendant’s own or at the suggestion of law enforcement cooperators can result in life-destroying prosecutions for the unwary.

The government has nearly unlimited resources to deal with these cases, but the accused are usually indigent, and the lawyers who take on their cases are hard pressed to compete with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office in terms of finances and manpower. Public opinion is still overwhelmingly on the side of the government, and juries are frequently willing to convict despite strong evidence of entrapment. Those who fight on behalf of the accused also battle the public perception that they sympathize with terrorists, and the stigma can be difficult to overcome.

The true meaning of “The Rule of Law” is that a government of laws protects all its citizens, even those who would break the law, with constitutionally guaranteed rights: the right to legal counsel, the right to confront one’s accusers, and the right to prepare a defense. With all this in mind, the NCPCF brought together professionals who have experience in this area to allow them to share, and to teach, the strategies that worked for them, and to allow them to brainstorm about strategies that could be improved. The attendees left the conference feeling empowered, educated, and, perhaps most importantly, connected to a broad network of experience and ability that will serve them well the next time they are called upon to defend against unjust charges.

The NCPCF’s website, which lists many of the recent terrorism cases discussed above, and provides resources for defendants, families, and communities, is www.civilfreedoms.org.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, or if you need legal advice of any sort, do not hesitate to contact Sam at (718) 293-1977. He and his associates have experience in handling some of the most complex criminal cases in recent memory, and they would be happy to put their expertise to work on your behalf, or to address your group or community about these issues.  (jba)