Another Terrorism Mistrial, But Overall Far More Convictions Than Acquittals

By Andrew Cochran

From the Associated Press: "One of seven Miami men accused of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was acquitted Thursday, and a mistrial was declared for the six others after the federal jury deadlocked. Federal prosecutor Richard Gregorie said the government plans to retry the six next year."

This joins other terrorism-related trials which ended with underwhelming results for the government prosecutors: Holy Land Foundation; Sami al-Arian; Benevolence International founder Enaam Arnaout; Sami al-Hussayen in Idaho; Mohamed Salah and Abdelhalim Ashqar in Chicago; and others.

Although the government failed in a number of these high-profile cases, it's important to review the entire caseload of terrorism-related prosecutions. Jeffrey Breinholt, who led prosecutors in terrorism-related cases at the Justice Department, addressed this at our panel this week on the Holy Land Foundation and the Muslim Brotherhood (which I will summarize in a separate post):

It took us three times to finally get John Gotti, and few people today argue that it was not worth it. The most recent (Holy Land Foundation) trial was actually the third HLF-related case. These cases have involved the same prosecutors, agents and paralegal - some of whom are in this room - and many of the same defendants and defense attorneys. The government won each of those first two cases, and did so handily. In this sense, if you’re keeping score, the government’s record so far in HLF-related cases is 2-0-1. Not too shabby. Consider that, despite what the media claims whenever the government suffers a set-back, or less-than-satisfying victory in a terrorist financing case - that we still win about ten times more than we lose. The number of people convicted of material support - either by jury trial or guilty plea - is over 1000 percent of those who are acquitted. Yes, those persons convicted include Sami Al-Arian. That should give pause to those you claim we need to think about some major calibration in our terrorist financing strategy.

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