home

Will Third Time Be the Charm for Liberty City Trial?

The Liberty City aka Sears Tower trial begins again in Florida after two mistrials in which jurors couldn't agree on a verdict.

Prosecutors tried to prove that the original seven defendants, a group of laborers from the tough Liberty City neighborhood, provided “material support” to a terrorist organization, and planned to destroy buildings. But they relied mostly on the men’s words, citing their loyalty oath to Al Qaeda and aggressive comments made to two F.B.I. informants.

More concrete evidence did not emerge. Testimony showed that a search by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of what it called the group’s headquarters did not yield guns, explosives or blueprints for an attack. Besides a samurai sword, no weapons were found.

This was the trial hyped by Alberto Gonzales to the media. The Bush Administration played the "fear card" to the max and still couldn't get a guilty verdict. It should be more difficult this time around.

As University of Miami Law Prof Bruce Winnick says, it's more like a grade B movie plot than a criminal case.

Our past coverage of the trials is accessible here.

< Conyers Subpoenas Rove in U.S. Attorney Firing and Siegelman Case | If Stupid Were A Crime . . . >
  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


  • Display: Sort:
    per the FBI and DOJ, (none / 0) (#1)
    by cpinva on Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 07:59:18 AM EST
    under bush, any maroon who drunkenly bragged about a "plot" against, well, damn near anyone or thing, was considered a terrorist, rather than what they actually were, a drunken maroon blathering on about their idiotic fantasy world.

    very efficient use of scarce, allocable resources.

    These are the guys... (none / 0) (#2)
    by lambert on Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 09:09:03 AM EST
    ... who ordered their terrorist uniforms from a uniform supplier, right?

    Funny Thing Is (none / 0) (#3)
    by squeaky on Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 01:12:00 PM EST
    Is that they would have never thought of that on their own.

    Heckuvajob...

    Parent

    I wish we could try... (none / 0) (#4)
    by kdog on Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 01:31:16 PM EST
    the schmucks at DOJ who insist on trying to railroad these Liberty City knuckleheads for a third time.  No shame, no shame.