Prosecutors Talk the Talk, Experts Say After 2nd Sears Tower Terror Mistrial
Are prosecutors promising too much and delivering too little in federal terrorism trials?
Experts discussing the issue in the wake of yesterday’s mistrial (the second so far) in the case of six Liberty City, Fla., men accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago say the answer to that question may be yes, points out the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.
“In a lot of these cases, the government has really oversold what it’s got,” Jenny Martinez, a professor at Stanford Law School who was involved in the Jose Padilla terrorism case, tells the New York Times. “They’ve held these huge press conferences at the beginning that set up these expectations that the government cannot fulfill.”
“There’s no way to spin this other than to say this is another stunning defeat for the government,” Matthew Orwig tells the Associated Press, concerning the mistrial. He is a former U.S. attorney in Texas, and served on a Justice Department terrorism and national security panel.
Details of the first Sears Tower terrorism mistrial are discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard, who also presided over the first trial, declared a second mistrial yesterday after the jury failed to reach a verdict following 13 days of deliberations. She scheduled a status conference next week, at which a decision on whether to retry the six defendants is expected to be announced.
Additional coverage:
Washington Post: “2nd Mistrial in ‘Liberty City 7’ Case”
Reuters: “Terrorism case ends in second mistrial in Miami”
Agence France-Presse: “Mistrial in Florida domestic terrorism case”
