More on the Padilla Verdict
By Mona
As analysis of the trial continues to become more comprehensive, it truly appears that Padilla has many very firm grounds for appeal, including what seem to be clear violations of his constitutional rights. Macswain at Comments from Left Field notes that not only did US District Judge Marcia Cooke, a Bush 43 appointee, refuse to let the jury hear evidence of Padilla’s torture and 3.5 years of detention incommunicado and no legal counsel, she permitted copious admissions of hearsay in which Padilla could not examine the witnesses, and otherwise issued evidentiary rulings that are nearly unheard of in normal trials. My emphasis:
Most troubling, however, was the court’s willingness to allow the government to present a witness with a hidden identity to authenticate the “Mujahideen Data Form.†The witness’ identity was kept secret not only from the public and the jury but from the defense as well. Moreover, the jury wasn’t even told the CIA agent was testifying anonymously but was misled into believing he was who he claimed to be (and believing the defense had an opportunity to fully vet him). To make matters worse, the trial court allowed the secret witness to testify about his conversations with an unidentified source from whom he allegedly received the documents as to where the document came from. The court then handcuffed the defense’s cross-exam because of a fear of revealing state secrets. It is important to remember that this wasn’t some side issue but was the evidence at the heart of the government’s case against Padilla. Of course, such an unprecedented evidentiary ruling throws out the Sixth Amendment right every American has to confront witnesses against him.
Padilla’s mother, according to Reuters, observed that the trial took place in Miami, which is a Republican city. I’ve thought Padilla may have lost his case at the point of jury selection, but the pool may not have been the best for fairness and impartiality. This is what I mean:
Jurors, whose names were kept secret, deliberated for about 11 hours after three months of trial in Miami and declined to publicly discuss their verdict….
In a color-coordinated display of their patriotism, the jurors wore red, white and blue clothing to court before breaking for a July 4th recess.
Eleven hours of deliberation after a huge amount of evidence presented during a trial that long is pretty unusual, and then there is that “patriotic” clothing bit. They may think they were serving American values, but let’s see what the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has to say.
Comment by Kieran —
August 18, 2007 @ 8:47 am
In a color-coordinated display of their patriotism, the jurors wore red, white and blue clothing to court before breaking for a July 4th recess.
Clearly any reasonable judge would have asked them “WTF do you think you’re playing at?” at this point.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 18, 2007 @ 8:54 am
A cynical thought on it:
If Padilla hadn’t been convicted, we’d probably be in yet another Constitutional crisis, with the administration refusing to release a man who’s been found not guilty by a jury of his peers. Perhaps the judge (and maybe even his lawyers?) knew this and didn’t want to go there?
That should NOT be construed as a justification for the verdict or for anybody’s actions. Quite the opposite.
Comment by bak —
August 18, 2007 @ 9:04 am
Whoa, whoa, whoa… Miami is a Republican city? Since when?
I’m not so sure about that.
There are plenty of conservative Cuban types around, but remember how the Republicans had to fly their agitators in in 2000?
Comment by anodyne —
August 18, 2007 @ 11:10 am
Stipulated fact:
“In a color-coordinated display of their patriotism, the jurors wore red, white and blue clothing to court before breaking for a July 4th recess.â€
Three questions for anyone with knowledge of constitutional law and/or jury trials.
1.Could/Would this fact be used to support a legal claim that the jury was not impartial or fair in the Padilla case?
2. IF this fact were to be used to claim a lack of impartiality or fairness, what legal concepts, principles or precedents would be proffered to advance the claim?
3. Is there some other claim that would be grounds for an appeal that the stipulated fact would be used to support and what legal concepts, principles or precedents would be proffered to advance this claim?
Comment by Nell —
August 18, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
The jurors’ clothing story creeped me out, but it’s possible that this is becoming another unappealing bit of folk culture in our republic-turned-empire.
The jurors in I. Lewis Libby’s trial wore red on Valentine’s Day (all but one woman, who later on was released as a juror). (Noted by the bloggers covering the trial at firedoglake.com and thenexthurrah.typepad.com)
If I were a judge I would certainly have a word with jurors before a trial began, warning against any stunts that would make them the center of attention, much less call into question their impartiality. But the judge who oversaw the Padilla trial appeared to be entirely comfortable with far worse abuses than that.
There are some very Republican and right-wing parts of Miami, true; (and those elements have no grounds to get huffy about terrorism). But it’s not “a Republican city”; no city with as many black voters as Miami could be.
Trackback by Atlas Blogged —
August 18, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
The Padilla Jury…
Setting aside *everything* about the Jose Padilla case that I might have been interested in discussing up to three minutes ago, I have a question about how reasonable this assessment is:Jurors, whose names were kept secret, deliberated for about 11……
Comment by kishnevi —
August 19, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
Not only is Miami not necessarily a Republican city, but the jury pool would have been drawn from a much larger area, that (in theory at least) would include most of South Florida, including Miami Beach (home of SoBe and all those Northern Jewish retirees–although of course a Northern Jewish retiree could have significant problems with a purported Moslem terrorist) and Wilton Manors (which is part of Fort Lauderdale, but an independent city that allegedly is the second gayest city in the US (in terms of gay population or gay population per capit, number one being San Fran.) an Opa Locka, which is heavily African American. And, as Nell says, those Republican parts of Miami have absolutely no right to huff at Padilla for terrorism, considering how most of them support a man who blew a plane load of passengers out of the sky in the name of anti-Castroism.
Given the Hispanic demography, Padilla’s background as a former gangmember may have been more prejudicial than the political allegiance of the jury.