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This is the page of the latest news on the dispute between the University of South Florida and USF Professor Sami Al-Arian. UFF is no longer assisting Al-Arian in his confrontation with the USF Board of Trustees, and as of March 29, this site is no longer being updated at the same comprehensive level as before. However, major events are still being noted.

And this is Continuing Because...

The question at the end of August was...why was Al-Arian still detained? As Al-Arian’s attorneys complained in yet another habeas corpus petition, if the government Al-Arian had been ordered released on bond, his continued detention became illegal forty days ago under current law, and besides that the ICE is not returning the attorneys' phone calls. The New York Sun, reporting that Al-Arian files Habeas for Release, commented that "the legal authority for protracted detention of an immigrant the government is not seeking to deport is murky," and said that ICE had no comment. Meanwhile, as a sign of how keeping this going is keeping this in the news, the St. Petersburg Times ran an article on Sept. 1 on Life once in shambles, former USF instructor Al-Najjar builds new one; Steve Emerson took exception, writing in Family Security Matters that Newspaper Whitewashes Story of Man Linked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Then on Tuesday, September 2, Al-Arian was released from Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia.

The release attracted some attention.

• The St. Petersburg Times reported on Sept. 3 that Al-Arian, ex-USF professor, released from prison, and that U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered that Al-Arian's criminal contempt trial be postponed until the U.S. Supreme Court can hear the case. The Times also reported that Brinkema expressed "significant concerns about (the) conduct" of the prosecution and that she would look into the "validity of the (prosecutor's) immunity order" that lies near the heart of the contempt charge.
• The Washington Post reported on Sept. 3 that Ex-Professor in Palestinian Case Is Freed After 5 Years, and that Al-Arian will be electronically monitored as he is detained at his daughter's house (the Times had reported that he would be fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet).
• John Sugg, who is writing a book on the case, told the Institute for Public Accuracy that: "Why and when was al-Arian important? Why did a rogue prosecutor in Virginia seek to keep him in jail? The answers go back more than a decade, when Israel's Likudniks in the United States, such as [journalist] Steve Emerson, were working feverishly to undermine the Oslo peace process. ... Al-Arian ... was vigorously trying to communicate with our government and its leaders. He was being successful, making speeches to intelligence and military commanders at MacDill AFB's Central Command, inviting the FBI and other officials to attend meetings of his groups. People were beginning to listen and to wonder why only one side of the Middle East debate was heard here. That was the reason for al-Arian's political prosecution, and for his recent jailing..."
• As of 3:12 pm, Google News reported 367 articles under "al-arian", including 197 apparently recent ones, ranging from the Counterterrorism Blog's Al-Arian Released On Bail (which began with the line, "Sami Al-Arian, convicted of supporting the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)..."), to UPI's report that Muslim group praises professor's release, which quoted a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council that "Since his arrest five years ago, al-Arian's case has become an example of what many American Muslims perceived to be numerous post-9/11 political persecutions of individuals using tactics that amount to little more than guilt by association."
• There was some international coverage, including the Pakistan Daily Times report that Palestinian professor free at last to Al Jazeera's report that US 'terror' suspect freed from jail.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Jonathan Turley, J.B. and Maurice Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, and Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center and Executive Director of the Project for Older Prisoners, and, according to Wikipedia, author of over 500 mainstream articles and involved in litigation involving black bag jobs conducted under FISA, nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, and Area 51. Now lead counsel for Al-Arian, he posted on his blog (of course he has a blog) on March 3 that for the third time, Al-Arian was being called before a grand jury. The Justice Department Calls Dr. Sami Al-Arian Before Third Grand Jury briefly outlines Al-Arian's past refusals to testify and concludes with the statement:

	On behalf of Mr. Olson and Mr. Meitl and the entire legal team, I wanted to express our great disappointment in the decision of the Justice Department to continue this effort to mete out punishment that it could not secure from a jury. Having lost the case in Florida, the Justice Department has openly sought to extend his confinement by daisy-chaining grand juries. As in other cases, the government has given Dr. Al-Arian the choice of an obvious perjury trap or a contempt sanction. It is a choice that is obnoxious to our legal system and contrary to any standard of decency. The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush Administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist. We stand committed to fighting this great injustice and hopefully reuniting Dr. Al-Arian with his family and friends.

That evening, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced that Al-Arian had begun a third hunger strike. The announcement included the concern that the Department of Justice was not acting in good faith:

	Dr. Al-Arian's attorneys argue that forcing him to testify is a clear violation of the plea agreement he reached with the government in the spring of 2006. Further, Dr. Al-Arian has been advised that the grand jury subpoena is a ploy by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg to ensnare him in a perjury trap, as he has done to at least one another Muslim defendant.

By March 5, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced that Al-Arian had been moved to the medical unit.
On March 7, Truthdig described Al-Arian's Third Strike, which included a statement that Al-Arian had already lost fifteen pounds (!), and that he had released a statement that "A great nation is ultimately defined and judged by its system of justice ... When the system is manipulated by the powerful and tolerates abuses against the minorities or the weak members of society, the government not only loses its moral authority and betrays future generations, but will also be condemned by history." Truthdig also suggested that there was a written record of the non-cooperation agreement at the root of the dispute:

	The decision to call Al-Arian before the grand jury was made although Al-Arian had signed a "no-cooperation" agreement. The agreement stipulated that he would not be required to cooperate with the government in other cases. The government’s attempt to force him to testify, despite the agreement, came a month before his scheduled release. It is seen by his lawyers and his family as an effort by the government to keep the activist in jail indefinitely.

In mid-April, the situation got more tense.

• The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced on April 11 -- Al-Arian's prospective release date before the grand jury investigation -- that he had lost 34 pounds in this hunger strike. On April 12, according to the TBCJP, Al-Arian was transferred to the Special Housing Unit to be held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The TBJCP complained that conditions of his confinement were getting more harsh, and that officials were lying to the public and to each other about his situation.
• The Tampa Tribune took a slightly different view, as was reflected in the headline of their April 15 story, "Al-Arian Placed In Hands Of Immigration Officials", and their April 16 story, "Transfer Of Al-Arian Might Signal Plan For Deportation".

Appeal Denied

On Friday, January 26, 2008, the Eleventh Circuit of Appeals DENIED Al-Arian’s appeal of the Florida District Court ruling that he can be compelled to testify before grand jury proceedings into the operations of Virginia charities. The court made this ruling after ruling that the case was not rendered moot by Judge Lee's ruling lifting the contempt ruling (below). The plea agreement Al-Arian made with the Department of Justice did not address the question of whether Al-Arian would be required to cooperate with related federal proceedings, but Al-Arian’s lawyers contended that the government agreed orally that Al-Arian would not be compelled to cooperate (I have not seen ANY denial of the oral agreement by any official body, although the 11th circuit opinion described this agreement as "the government’s alleged promise never to require his cooperation in any future capacity"; the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace contends that assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Zitek confirmed in court that the oral agreement was made, which brings us back to the Court's peculiar policy about transcripts of proceedings). The Florida District Court said that since the written plea agreement did not address this issue, Al-Arian could be compelled to testify, and on January 26, the 11th Circuit agreed, writing of a precedent of the same court, "we held that the plea agreement did not preclude the government from attempting to compel testimony from Perdue, and we so held even though we recognized that the government may have misled Perdue and that Perdue may have misunderstood the plea agreement." Afterwards, Al-Arian’s attorney, C. Peter Erlinder, was quoted by AP saying of the ruling that "This is politics, this is not law."
Meanwhile, as far as media profile goes, the Al-Arian case seems to be receding. Google lists only "about 26,500" hits for "al-arian" (with this page as eighth and Wikipedia’s as first), and a cursory review of "about 90" (actually, 24) articles linked from Google News for "al-arian" reveal a few news stories about the denial and a number of columns mentioning Al-Arian in passing while concentrating on more recent events.

Contempt Lifted

Judge Gerald Bruce Lee was appointed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by President Clinton in 1998, and unanimously confirmed. The district is known a "rocket docket" because of the (relative) speed with which it handles cases, and Lee himself coined the phrase "adrenaline of excellence". (The district also restricts on-line access to non-notable cases, and Al-Arian's contempt case was not "notable".) Elaine Cassel wrote in a Civil Liberties Watch posting on Judge Gerald Bruce Lee: Doing What Judges Are Supposed to Do that "The rocket docket favors the prosecutors, those well-heeled U.S. Attorneys who have no end to money and resources." Anyway, on December 13, 2007, Lee lifted the contempt charge against Al-Arian, so now the clock of his prison sentence is running again -- as of mid-December, 2007, he has four more months to go. If no more contempt charges are brought, he should complete his sentence as of April, 2008, when he would likely be deported (possibly to Egypt). On December 14, in its story on Al-Arian contempt charge is lifted, the St. Petersburg Times quoted one of Al-Arian's attorneys, Jonathan Turley, saying of the contempt charges (which were brought to induce him to testify to federal grand juries), "The use of civil contempt to prolong his punishment has been a shocking abuse of the system by the Justice Department."

Miscellany

Nahla Al-Arian had expressed concerns about the effect the maelstrom around her husband was having on her younger children. On June 21, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Al-Arian's wife, 2 children will move to Egypt, saying that Nahla would join her husband in Virginia briefly, and then take her two younger children to Egypt, where she has family. The St. Petersburg Times quoted her saying, "I love Egypt, but America is my home ... But living here is unsettling for Ali and Lama." In the Tampa Tribune's June 21 report, Al-Arian's Family Said To Be Leaving, Ahmed Bedier, Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ahmed Bedier, after a press conference on anti-Muslim bias, said that it would be easier for Nahla Al-Arian to support the family in Egypt.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Coalition Coalition for Justice and Peace sent out a press release on June 21 regarding Sami Al-Arian's continued detention for Contempt of Court arising from his refusal to testify to a grand jury. According to the TBCJP, in a closed federal hearing, "Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the Eastern District of Virginia made a finding that further confinement may coerce his testimony." The release said that the judge had been persuaded of this because of "hundreds of letters and postcards" urging Al-Arian's release, in part because of his strong family ties; Lee purportedly said that those ties may induce Al-Arian to testify. (The TBCJP said that the letters were helpful in pressing the Inspector General of the Department of Justice into investigating alleged abuse of Al-Arian by prison guards and authorities.) It was not clear why the hearing was closed, and the TBCJP reported that the The New York Sun has filed an action to open the proceedings to the public.
And the Norwegian documentary continued its travels, visiting Tampa again in early fall, and then arriving at USF on Friday, November 9. It received a largely positive review in the Nov. 13 USF Oracle, where the reviewer wrote that, "Halvorsen was able to convey the difficulty Sami Al-Arian had in receiving a fair trial from our post-9/11 judicial system," and quoted one of Al-Arian's attorneys, Linda Moreno, saying that, "He is treated harsher and with less respect than convicted criminals."

The Buzz at USF

The Norwegian documentary USA vs Al-Arian made its Tampa premier on May 16th, at 7:30 pm in Tampa Theatre (see also their their schedule, followed with a panel discussion including Linda Moreno, Defense Attorney; One of the Jurors from the trial; Line Halvorsen, Film Director; Abdullah Al-Arian, Sami's eldest son; Rob Lorei, WMNF News Director; Warren Clark, Pastor of First United Church of Tampa (UCC); and Pilar Saad, teacher at the Islamic Academy. The movie was primarily about the effect of the case on Nahla Al-Arian and her family, with little coverage of the trial itself. Coincidentally, among local news stories:

• The April 27 USF Oracle reported that Al-Arian hinging hopes on June court date in Virginia.
• The May 8 Tampa Tribune reported that one of the reporters who originally broke the story, Michael Fechter, an investigative reporter for the Tribune, was leaving to work for a website Steve Emerson (another of the original movers) is developing. The Tribune story, Michael Fechter Leaves Tribune, reported that Fechter will focus on "Islamic extremists" and quoted him saying, "I think what we learned in the Al-Arian saga is that there are people in this country who would prefer we not know exactly who they are and exactly what they're doing ... and to me this is a continuation of the journalistic enterprise to disclose that." (Editorial question / comment: what "people in this country" is Fechter referring to?) Tribune Executive Editor Janet Coats was quoted saying of Fechter, "He's always been a very careful and precise journalist ... If anything, he's erred on the side of being conservative in his approach to his reporting"; still, the Tribune reported that when Fechter gave his two weeks' notice, the Tribune told him to clear out by the end of the day. Emerson said Fechter should have won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the case.

A Rising Buzz

And now a Norwegian documentary has come out, "Usa Mot Al-Arian," (that's USA versus Al-Arian), an apparently low-budget affair as it does not seem to have its own English-language website. But it was significant enough to be reviewed by Variety, whose reviewer wrote that "Norwegian helmer Line Halvorsen constructs a damning portrait of the case by focusing on the trial's emotional toll. Docu picked up the Tromso fest's audience prize, signaling further fest play before possible cable pickup." norske Le Monde diplomatique's reviewer wrote (in a review entitled A Prisoner of Conscience in the USA) that "The documentary film USA versus Al-Arian (2007), directed by Line Halvorsen and recently shown at the Tromso International Film Festival, provides us with a grotesque example of the willingness of the American authorities to trample over the civil liberties of the individual to achieve political aims." On February 26, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced that Amnesty International-Norway had sponsored a screening of the film, followed by a reception at the Nobel Peace Center, and the next day the film was screened for some members of the Norwegian Parliament. Al-Arian's wife appeared at these events and read a statement composed by her husband.

• Then on Wednesday, March 7, Al-Arian’s attorney said that Al-Arian may soon be subjected to force feeding, according to the March 8 USF Oracle report Lawyer: Bureau of Prisons may force-feed Al-Arian. The story also reported that Al-Arian’s wife said that Al-Arian has lost over 45 pounds, and quoted her saying, "When my son went to see him last week, he was too weak to walk." The Oracle also announced that Faithful America, a ministry of the National Churches of Christ USA, had issued an appeal entitled University professor al Arian remains jailed, despite acquittal, asking people to visit the Free Sami Al-Arian site and to send a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

• One of the mainstream media did react, and on March 20, the St. Petersburg Times reported in Gaunt Al-Arian shocks family that Nikki Credic of the U.S. Marshals Service said, "We will not let him die. We will force feed him before that happens." But as of noon, March 20, of the 210 stories on "Al-Arian" linked from Google News, the Times story was the only one posted since the previous weekend, and the only "mainstream media" story posted since the New York Sun's Feb. 25 report Al-Arian Collapses From Effects of Water-Only Hunger Strike.

• On April 11, the USF Oracle reported that Al-Arian to appeal court again. The report was accompanied by a photograph -- not posted on the Oracle's site -- of the Al-Arian family gathered around Al-Arian, who is in a wheelchair, visibly emaciated, but appearing to be in good spirits. Ms. Al-Arian -- who did not look in good spirits in the photo -- was quoted saying, "It is the atmosphere of our country that led to this, judges who are political appointees and activist judges"; this remark was apparently a response to the refusal of the U.S. Attorney to honor an apparent oral agreement not to compel Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury.

Back to the Limelights

After sentencing, Al-Arian had seemed quietly packed away in prison, and the media moved on to other things. For whatever reason, that was an unsatisfactory resolution for the Department of Justice, or at least for Eastern District of Virginia assistant U.S. attorney Gordon Kromberg, who required that Al-Arian testify before a grand jury investigating several Islamic charities. Al-Arian refused, and was found in contempt, and responded by starting a water-only hunger strike on January 22 (he is diabetic, making a water-only hunger strike somewhat risky). On February 7, he was interviewed on Democracy Now, which describes itself as "a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 450 stations in North America," and adding, "Democracy Now! is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers, and foundations. We do not accept advertisers, donations from corporations, or donations from governments. This allows us to maintain our independence." The interview is posted on-line, and largely jumps around, with a few interesting revelations and accusations. Among these:

• Al-Arian maintains that there was not only no agreement that he would cooperate in ensuing investigations, but in fact there was an agreement that he would not be compelled to cooperate. His lawyer, Peter Erlinder, agreed and said that Kromberg "has a pattern of calling before the grand jury or calling to his office Arab and Muslim defendants who have been acquitted. He then asks them questions and, based on what his interpretation of the truth is, then indicts them for lying either to the grand jury or lying to him as a federal official." (This time-honored tactic was standard operating procedure for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.) Asked what he was being asked to testify about, Al-Arian responded "Well, I’m not really sure, because I don’t believe that -- I think it's just a justification to ask me whatever they want." In fact, Al-Arian was concerned Mr. Kromberg was playing his game: "I think its' just a pretext to hold me either in contempt or charge me with perjury, because whatever I'm going to say, they're going to say, 'You lied.'"
• Al-Arian said that he was a target of a longstanding campaign by "likudniks" going back to 1994. He said that he actively supported George W. Bush in 2000 because the Clinton administration was using secret evidence -- evidence the defense was not permitted to see -- against defendents. "The Bush campaign embraced us. And he said -- I mean, he talked in the second debate about how, you know, unjustly it is to use 'racial profiling,' he called it, in the name of secret evidence. And we endorsed him based on that promise."
• Al-Arian also had something to say about USF. He claimed that USF President Judy Genshaft offered him $ 1 million to resign in summer, 2002, and then withdrew the offer at the behest of then-USF Board of Trustees Chair Dick Beard, who (according to Al-Arian) contacted then-Governor Jeb Bush to arrange something. (The February 8 St. Petersburg Times article USF considered $1M payoff to Al-Arian reported that Beard confirmed that the offer was considered: "The president (Judy Genshaft) and the lawyers felt that they were doing something to end the problems with Al-Arian, but I objected because I saw it as a payoff.") Al-Arian said that Bush needed time to make arrangements, and "so" USF sued him "in order to fire me" while Jeb Bush contacted Washington, and "we know the rest of the story."

• Before his conviction, he was the only non-convict at the prison (most defendents awaiting trial are locked up in jail; for a recent description of reporter Jacob Fries' visit to the Pinellas County jail, across the bay from Tampa, see the January 14 St. Petersburg Times feature Burden on the Block, and a description of the policy difficulties in Pinellas County Jail: The big picture). Al-Arian revisited the now-notorious security arrangements: he was in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, when his lawyer visited he was brought to the visiting rooms with his hands shackled behind his back, so he had to carry his books and notes on his back, (Q: You'd be bent over at a ninety-degree angle, to keep your documents on your back? A: That’s right ...)
• In one prison, he was in a cell (23 hours a day) in the female section. In another, "... it was very difficult, because in one hour -- and then they let 200 people out at one time; in one hour you’re supposed to get a shower, make a phone call, do whatever you want, and obviously have to wait in line on each and every one of them."
• "And then, I was transferred to another prison in Petersburg, Virginia, in which I had clean clothes. They took the clean clothes and gave me dirty clothes and turnout clothes. And when I protested, you know, they started giving me obscenities. I had an undershirt, and it was almost twenty degrees, and they took the undershirt and they put it in the garbage. They took my sneakers."

• While all this was going on, Amnesty International's Program Director for the Americas Region sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez expressing AI's concern that Al-Arian's "conditions of confinement fail to meet international standards for humane treatment." Reviewing those conditions of Al-Arian's confinement, the letter stated that Al-Arian's "... treatment in prison ... is in breach of the USA's obligations under international standards and treaties, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ...," Section 10.1 reading, "All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person." The letter (which apparently has not been posted on-line) also expressed concerns that the decision to call Al-Arian before a grand jury was politically motivated -- or worse, motivated by the prosecutor's personal attitudes towards Islam.
• According to Section 20.5 of the 2001 - 2003 BOR/UFF Collective Bargaining Agreement, which has the same language as the 2004-2007 BOT/UFF Collective Bargaining Agreement, unless a grievant waives UFF representation, UFF is the exclusive representative of the grievant in the grievance. In 2003, al-Arian was pursuing a grievance against the USF Board of Trustees, and he was represented by the UFF. Nevertheless, UFF was not informed of the $ 1 million offer to al-Arian to settle the grievance until the Democracy Now! interview. So the UFF/USF Chapter has sent a formal letter to the USF administration asking for an explanation.

• On Tuesday, February 14, Al-Arian collapsed and hit his head. He was transferred to the Federal Medical Center at Butner, North Carolina, which is run by the Bureau of Prisons.

Where we are now

On February 2, the Special Collections department of the USF main library circulated a description of its collection of materials on Al-Arian collected thus far. It has 38 boxes containing 18 linear feet of material, from newspaper articles to memos. No court transcripts, alas, for the court charges $ 0.50 a page for copies (and although the court does generate PDF files, it is unwilling to share -- a policy for conspiracy theorists to mull over). This site is now about the size of a book -- ballpark estimate is somewhat under 100,000 words -- and Google now ranks it as fifth of "about 318,000" hits on "al-arian", of which Wikipedia's page (of course, at last) is first, Free Sami Al-Arian is second, Tampa Bay On-Line's page is third (TBO is shared by the Tampa Tribune and WFLA TV-8 "On Your Side"), and David Horowitz's Discover the Network page is sixth. Fourth is an unfortunately named investment group that is probably tired of the whole thing.

Virginia was Jefferson's State

The fight over Al-Arian's lack of cooperation in Virginia continued. On January 23, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced that Al-Arian had begun a second hunger strike "to protest continued government harassment." The TBCJP announcement included a statement made by Al-Arian to the court in which he stated that in their negotiations with the prosecution leading to the plea agreement, the defense had discussed promising cooperation in return for a "guarantee" that the resulting sentence would be towards the low end of the recommended sentence; Al-Arian had decided against such a deal and that, he says, is how his sentence got on the high end. The implication is that the prosecution is out of line demanding cooperation anyway.
According the the TBCJP report, Al-Arian continued to say, "I also would like to bring to the court's attention to the way I have been treated for the past three weeks. In the past three weeks, I have been to four prisons. I spent fourteen days in the Atlanta penitentiary under 23-hour lockdown, in a roach and rat infested environment. On two occasions, rats shared my diabetic snack. When I was transported from Atlanta to Petersburg (Virginia) and from Petersburg to Alexandria, they allowed me only to wear a t-shirt in subfreezing weather during long walks. In the early morning, the Atlanta guard took my thermal undershirt which I purchased from the prison and threw it in the garbage and when I complained, he threatened to use a lockbox on my handcuffs which would make them extremely uncomfortable. In Petersburg, the guard asked me to take off my clean t-shirt and boxers and gave me dirty and worn out ones. When I complained, he told me to `shut the f up.' And when I asked why he was treating me like that, he said `because you're a terrorist.' When I further complained to the lieutenant in charge, he shrugged it off and said if I don't like it, I should write a grievance to the Bureau of Prisons. When I said he had the authority to give me clean clothes, he refused and said if I don't like it I should write a grievance to the Bureau of Prisons. During one of the airlifts, an air marshal further tightened my already tightened handcuffs, and asked me `Why do you hate us?' I told him, `I don't hate you.' He said, `I know who you are, I've read your s-h-i-t.' These are examples of the government's harassment campaign against me that's been taking place for years because of my political beliefs --" And at this point, according to the TBCJP report, the judge cut Al-Arian off, saying that the court had no control over the Board of Prisons. (As this site has noted before, for some reason the docket does not post transcripts -- just the cover pages -- even though the court does circulate electronic copies of transcripts to counsel.) See also the January 24, 2007 USF Oracle report Al-Arian held in contempt, goes on hunger strike.

On to Virginia

Something appears to be up.

The U.S. Court of the Eastern District of Virginia handles some of the hottest cases of the War on Terror, including U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, U.S. v. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, U.S. v. Masoud Khan, et. al., U.S. v. Jay Lentz, U.S. v. John Walker Lindh, and Yaser Hamdi v. Donald Rumsfeld. On Sept. 26, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Al-Arian ordered to testify in case: His ex-lawyer believes this is a ploy to further punish Al-Arian, who will likely not testify and will be held in contempt, reporting that Al-Arian has been moved to Virginia to appear before a grand jury at the Eastern District to testify about the International Institute of Islamic Thought, which had provided Al-Arian's World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) with some of its initial funding. The Times reported that Al-Arian's formal counsel contended that the plea agreement had no provision for Al-Arian providing testimony, and that the subpoena is "... an outrageous violation of the agreement ... Sami is about finished and they're piling on."
One of Al-Arian's attorneys, Jack Fernandez, asked Eastern District of Virginia assistant U.S. attorney Gordon Kromberg that Al-Arian not be moved to Virginia to testify during Ramadan, to which Kromberg allegedly replied, "they can kill each other during Ramadan, they can appear before the grand jury, all they can't do is eat before sunset. I believe Mr. Al-Arian's request is part of the attempted Islamization of the American Justice System. I am not going to put off Dr. Al-Arian's grand jury appearance just to assist in what is becoming the Islamization of America." Then on Oct. 19, the 26th day of Ramadan in 2006, Al-Arian was called before the Grand Jury where he refused to testify, saying that "forced cooperation violated the plea agreement," but no such restriction appeared in the written plea agreement, and as reported in the Nov. 10 Tampa Tribune story Al-Arian Called To Testify, prosecutors responded that Al-Arian's rationale constituted "unilateral effort to rewrite his plea agreement." According to the Nov. 10 St. Petersburg Times story Al-Arian attorney charges bias: He says a U.S. prosecutor openly condemned Islam and is aiming to stretch his client's sentence, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody said that any such agreement did not appear in the written plea agreement, and that mere oral agreements were not binding on the prosecution. Both November 10 stories reported that on Nov. 9, Al-Arian's attorneys reported Kromberg's comments on the ... Islamization of America ... and challenged Kromberg's objectivity.
On Nov. 13, Al-Arian's attorney appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Moody's ruling. On November 20, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Freedom mentioned another concern: that the prosecution sought to place Al-Arian under oath in order to obtain testimony that they would later impeach (by whatever methods) in order to pursue perjury charges. (This sort of game was practiced in the 1950s, when professional perjurers provided testimony contradicting that of suspected communists.)

The Last One

Two defendants remain at large: the British government refuses to extradite Bashir Nafi while the Syrian government refuses to extradite Ramadan Shallah. But the case of the last of the four defendants tried has now been resolved: on July 25, Hatem Fariz pleaded guilty to ... arranging a magazine interview with a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) member, sending tapes to Shallah before Shallah revealed himself as a senior member of the PIJ, and arranging for the purchase and distribution of bookbags and an ambulance to poor Palestinians, with the PIJ as the intermediary. Presumably all this involved some at least technical violations of the law, and Fariz was sentenced to 37 months in the federal pen. The July 26 St. Petersburg Times reported in Al-Arian associate gets prison: Hatem Fariz pleads guilty to providing nonviolent services to a terrorist group. His plea closes the 12-year terrorism investigation that Fariz told them, "Guess I'll lose weight and get some exercise in prison." He also recently pleaded guilty in Illinois to food stamp fraud.

Back at Coleman

On July 4, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace announced that Al-Arian had been transferred to Coleman Federal Correction Institution - Medium (security), which the Board of Prisons lists as "a medium security facility housing male inmates" in central Florida; the Board of Prisons more generally describes medium security housing as follows: "Medium security FCIs have strengthened perimeters (often double fences with electronic detection systems), mostly cell-type housing, a wide variety of work and treatment programs, an even higher staff-to-inmate ratio than low security FCIs, and even greater internal controls." The Coalition said that Al-Arian was in a Special Housing Unit and is allowed only one visit a week and one phone call a month; this is apparently the same unit that worried Amnesty International when it raised the issue of Al-Arian's prison conditions in their statement on Amnesty International raises concern about prison conditions of Dr Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian was transferred from Atlanta, and the Coalition wrote that "While in prison in Atlanta, Dr. Al-Arian (and the warden) received a large number of letters, enough to get the attention of administrators."

Going Home

On Monday, May 22, early in the morning, Sameeh Hammoudeh was taken out of jail and put on a flight from Miami to Tel Aviv, from which he would be sent to Ramallah. The transfer took place two days before a deadline when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would have to justify Hammoudeh's continued incarceration to the court. The media, his family, and his attorney were not informed of the transfer, which was reported in the May 24 St. Petersburg Times story Al-Arian associate heads home: Sameeh Hammoudeh is out of jail, six months after a jury refused to link him to terrorism; in fact, the report had no confirmation that Hammoudeh had been sent anyplace. Nevertheless, family and attorney took the report at face value, as did the Times, which reminded readers that Hammoudeh had been acquitted on all counts -- that within an hour of deliberations -- quoting "several jurors" saying, "We didn't know why he was there." The Tribune waited until Thursday, May 25, to report that Hammoudeh had been deported ... on Tuesday, and confirming that Hammoudeh had indeed been deported: Al-Arian Co-Defendant Back In West Bank. To U.S. government contentions that the delay in the deportation was the fault of Israeli footd-dragging, Hammoudeh's attorney said that Israeli officials had stamped the necessary travel document on April 20; to which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez evaded comment with: "The fact of the matter is these things take time, and every case is different ... We said all along we were working to carry out his removal orders mandated by law."

After the Curtain

In art, the play comes to an end, the curtain falls, and the players step come out to bow to the audience. Real life isn't like that, for real life always goes on. So even though it's over it's not clear that it's over and at any rate a lot of people have things to say about it. First up, movie buffs may recall that at the end of the Charlton Heston / Michael York production of the three and four Musketeers, when D'Artagnan [York] presents Richelieu [Heston] with with an indiscretely composed death warrant; then Richelieu concedes, one must watch what one writes. It appears, as of this month, that one must also watch what one says in open court. Judge Moody's comments at sentencing, for example.

• On May 10, Al-Arian filed an appeal to the eleventh circuit court. His new attorney, long-time political associate and William Mitchell College of Law professor Peter Erlinder, said that the sentence was being appealed: see the May 11 Tampa Tribune report Al-Arian To Appeal Sentence. During sentencing, U.S. Judge James Moody had connected Al-Arian to the violence in Israel, while Al-Arian's attorneys had held that the plea agreement only mentioned acts separate from the violence. If Moody's comments could be construed as a rationale for the maximum sentence, and if the comments were out of order, the sentence could be subject to challenge.
• Meanwhile, the May 10 - 16 Weekly Planet ran John Sugg's column on Al-Arian's final persecution, in which Sugg suggests that the Department of Justice knew in advance that Moody was going to give Al-Arian the maximum sentence, and suggesting that Moody and U.S. Attorney Paul Perez may have been pressured by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to get a sentence to Gonzalez's liking: "Perez already had been passed over for one federal judgeship -- and speculation among his own staff was that it stemmed from his office's clear complicity in attempting to frame an anti-corruption crusading state judge. So, my bet is that Gonzales came to town and lowered the hammer. 'Give me blood,' is what I think he told Perez and Moody. Or else."
• Al-Arian was sent to the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, which the Federal Bureau of Prisons describes as "a low security facility housing female inmates with an adjacent detention center that houses administrative security level male inmates." On May 11, the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace issued a press release claiming that Al-Arian was placed in a "Special Housing Unit" because of receipt of a letter saying that Al-Arian posed a danger to other prisoners. Stating that he was in solitary confinement, the TBCJP wrote, "He is clearly being subjected to especially harsh conditions because of his political beliefs, ethnicity and religion. It is further evident that this vindictive treatment is a deliberate attempt to break him physically and psychologically."
• Then Al-Arian was moved again, this time to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the Board of Prisons website, the Atlanta penitentiary "houses high security male inmates and has a detention center for pre-trial and holdover inmates and a satellite camp for minimum security male inmates." According to the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace, Al-Arian was moved on June 7, and received no food or water for fifteen hours after his arrival. The Coalition also claimed that "he is held in solitary confinement and 23-hour a day lockdown. He is also facing mistreatment by guards who use racial slurs and insults against his religion."

Eighteen months

On May 1, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and with credit for the 39 months he has already been arrested, he will be in prison for 18 months, and then deported. See AP's May 1 report Florida professor sentenced in terrorism case.

• It is customary for the defendant to make a statement before sentencing, and Al-Arian chose to make a short and magnanimous speech. After thanking his attorneys and especially the jury and even some judges ("It's also my belief that an impartial and conscientious jury, as well as principled judicial rulings that uphold the values of the Constitution, are the real vehicles that win the hearts and minds of people across the globe, especially in the Arab and Muslim world."), he said that he "I harbor no bitterness or resentment" and in fact was grateful to the opportunities America had provided him and his family. He concluded by thanking his family and God for their support. The St. Petersburg Times posted Sami Al-Arian's court statement.
• U.S. District Judge James Moody was having none of it. He began with, "Dr. Al-Arian, as usual, you speak very eloquently. I find it interesting that here in public in front of everyone you praised this country, the same country that in private you referred to as 'the great Satan' ...'' He then condemned Al-Arian for being "a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," saying that, "When Iran ... became upset because the PIJ could not account for how it was spending its money ..." the PIJ Board decided to reform and Al-Arian moved to stop the reform by offering "to rewrite the bylaws of the organization." Moody went on: "... when it came to blowing up women and children on buses, did you leap into action then? ... No. You lifted not one finger, made not one phone call." Twice calling Al-Arian "a master manipulator," Moody sentenced Al-Arian to 57 months in prison -- the maximum allowed under the plea agreement -- less the 39 months already spent in jail (mostly in solitary confinement). The St. Petersburg Times posted Moody's remarks: Judge Moody: You are a master manipulator U.S. District Judge S. Moody made the following statement to Sami Al-Arian during Monday's sentencing. Incidentally, no one actually seems to remember Al-Arian referring to America as "the great Satan," and Moody may been mistakingly referring to such an epithet in something called "The Internal By-laws of Islamic Jihad in Palestine," which probably was written by someone else; see the May 4 St. Petersburg Times report Did judge put words in Al-Arian's mouth? Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys recall the former USF professor calling the U.S. "the great Satan.".

• As of May 2, the Free Al-Arian Site had not posted it, but the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace sent out a message to subscribers and supporters from Al-Arian, largely a variation on his statement to the Court, in which he wrote that "As a stateless Palestinian, I'll continue the struggle for justice, human rights, and self-determination on behalf of the oppressed Palestinian people, whether under occupation or in exile," and also "I also believe that the tools we must employ in this difficult struggle must be legitimate and just," and thus "I'll continue to call and work for the peaceful engagement and dialogue between civilizations, in particular between Muslim and Western intellectuals and academics. Those who advocate the clash between Islamic and Western cultures present a grave danger to this world and must be confronted in the intellectual and public spheres through forums and programs that deepen mutual understanding and cooperation." Al-Arian's messages were poseted by the Tampa Tribune.
• The May 2 St. Petersburg Times published quotes ( What They Said) from several major players, including USF Chairman of the Board of Trustees Dick Beard ("He's a radical Islamic, in my view, a terrorist. I'm sure he will spin his evil web and continue to do it in the Middle East or wherever he ends up"), Al-Arian's son Abdullah (Moody "sounded like a racist judge at a civil rights trial in the 1950s"), Steve Emerson ("The judge got it right. Al-Arian's masterful deception involved fooling this country"), and Al-Arian's attorney ("The jury knew this was a political prosecution").
• Grumps about the prosecution continued. While U.S. Attorney Paul Perez said that he had no "regrets" about the prosecution and that the Justice Department had succeeded in its "objective" of exposing "Mr. Al-Arian and other members of the PIJ and bring them to justice for the crimes they committed," George Washington University J.B. and Maurice Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law Jonathan Turley said, "While prosecutors may have been personally gratified by [the sentence, its relative lightness] only tended to highlight the fact that this was not a very successful prosecution," adding, "This case had legal flaws. There's a great deal of incriminating material in the record, but the case fell significantly short of supporting the government claims"; see the May 2 Tampa Tribune report Judge Rebukes, Sentences Al-Arian.

• The Tampa Tribune, which had followed the case closely for eleven years, editorialized on May 2 that Judge Gets To The Heart Of Al-Arian Case. Rejecting Al-Arian's statement that he "harbored no bitterness or resentment", the Tribune wrote that "It is perhaps the ultimate display of Al-Arian's arrogance to make himself a victim on the day he is being sentenced as a criminal," adding that "he never acknowledges or apologizes for the crime of providing support to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an organization responsible for hundreds of deaths and maimings in Israel," and concluding "Al-Arian has yet to understand that no one but his most myopic supporters buys the 'peaceful professor' act anymore."
• St. Petersburg Times columnist Susan Taylor Martin wrote on May 2 that In Middle East, Al-Arian resolution doesn't resonate -- or rather, she didn't, for comparing the headline to the story reminds readers that not even columnists (much less reporters) write their own headlines. Martin said that the Israel press largely ignored Al-Arian, even though the PIJ is behind almost all of the recent anti-Israeli violence: she quotes Haaretz correspondent Shmuel Rosner saying, "We don't find him significant" and adding, "Maybe he gave some money to somebody connected to Islamic Jihad. So what? There are many people supporting Islamic Jihad ... The story of Islamic Jihad is the support they get from the government in Damascus Syria, not from some American professor." She also quoted Jerusalem Post news editor Amir Mizroch saying that he and his colleagues "played up the story, just not at the moment, what with all the elections, coalitions, Iran and Hamas news going on." But she also said that the Arabs were following the case closely, quoting from an Arab News column in Saudi Arabia: "too many innocent people who have spoken out against Israel are either in jail or being charged unfairly. ... While we focus on the wrong front, the real terrorists, like Osama bin Laden, remain at large, plotting, planning and waiting for the moment to strike again."

Plea Bargain

On April 17, on the recommendations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas B. McCoun III and Defense Counsel Linda Moreno, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody, Jr. accepted a guilty plea from Sami al-Arian in Count Four of the superseding indictment (warning: 158-page PDF file). In the Plea Agreement, the parties agreed that:

• Al-Arian will plead GUILTY to "Conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
• That his actions were part of a "common and unlawful plan," and that Al-Arian, "knowing the unlawful purpose of the plan, wilfully joined in it."
• That at least one of the several hundred "overt acts" (the Plea Bargain doesn't say which one -- as if it mattered) was committed by "one of the conspirators" (the Plea Bargain doesn't say which one ...).
• The government agrees to dismiss the remaining charges, and not file any more.
• The government agrees to a sentence between 46 and 57 months. It does not say whether his jail time (nearly 38 months) will count as time served.
• Al-Arian agrees to cooperate with deportation proceedings. It does not require that the government institute said proceedings.
• The primary monetary liability is a fine of up to a quarter million dollars.
• The Plea Bargain states that in agreeing to the agreement, Al-Arian is "... pleading guilty freely and voluntarily without any discussions between the attorney for the government and the defendant and defendant's attorney and without promise of benefits of any kind (other than the concessions contained herein) ..."
• In addition, in signing the agreement, Al-Arian agrees that "Defendant is pleading guilty because defendant is in fact guilty. Defendant certifies that defendant does hereby admit that the facts set forth below are true, and were this case to go to trial would be able to prove those specific facts and others beyond any reasonable doubt." Then the Plea Bargain enumerates the "facts" that form the content of the agreed-upon confession, which include:
  • That Al-Arian was associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad over ten years ago, and so was Mazen al-Najjar, Bashir Nafi, and Ramadan Shallah. Incidentally, while Shallah was evidently associated with the PIJ (he now leads the organization), neither al-Najjar nor Nafi have made any such admissions; the Plea Agreement does not contain any commitment by Al-Arian to serve as a witness against these three, who are also named in the indictment and are thus subject to trial (Shallah is in Syria and Nafi in Great Britain, and the Syrian and British governments have declined to send them to the USA).
  • Al-Arian continued to perform services for the PIJ after President Clinton banned it in 1995 (thus making such services illegal). These services including helping unnamed PIJ associates with immigration and legal issues. They also included some money, although the agreement was vague about where it was going.
  • Al-Arian was lying when he told the media in 1995 that he had not known who Ramadan Shallah was.

• The office of U.S. Attorney Paul Perez issued a press release on behalf of the Department of Justice. The release quoted Perez saying, "Because of the painstaking work of the prosecutors and agents who pursued this case, Al-Arian has now confessed to helping terrorists do their work from his base here in the United States - a base he is no longer able to maintain."
• Stephen Flatow, whose daughter's death figured in Al-Arian's trial, said, "I think it's better than the prospect of going back to retrial and the chance that one year later another jury will have as hard a time," he said. "It was not the home run that the conviction on all those charges would have entailed. But I think it has taken him out of business."
• On April 18, the USF Oracle reported that Judge makes it official: Three days after it was initially reported that Sami Al-Arian agreed to a plea agreement that would result in his deportation, a federal judge approves the deal. Like other reports, the Oracle's noted that "The plea agreement ... acknowledges Al-Arian did not commit violent crimes and that there are 'no victims direct or indirect' due to his involvement with the PIJ. But the agreement also said Al-Arian was aware that the PIJ achieved its objectives via acts of violence."
• The St. Petersburg Times decided it was over. On April 18, the Times reported that Al-Arian's plea ends an ordeal: He agreed to a single count of conspiracy to end his family's turmoil, his attorney says, and quoted his attorney, Linda Moreno, saying, "In the agreement, he did not plead guilty to any crime of violence, and by pleading he gave his family closure in this ordeal." And on April 19, the St. Petersburg Times took at least the confession at face value, noting in its editorial The real Al-Arian: In the plea deal signed by Sami Al-Arian, the former USF professor is revealed as a moral and academic fraud who helped jihadists and then lied about it, that "He admits to cryptic phone calls, wary of wiretapping, in which he referred to bank deposits as 'shirts' or 'magazines'"; evidently referring to Facts (o) and (p) in the Plea Agreement that Al-Arian signed. This straightforward view of the situation was belied by an exchange described in the April 25 Times report Al-Arian plea deal overcame discord: Disagreements appear to have triggered a defense lawyer's request to withdraw from the case in December, which concludes with the following:
  U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun: ...if you're satisfied you're guilty or you believe it's in your best interest to plead guilty...let me know that.
  Al-Arian: I believe it's in my best interest to enter a plea.
• The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace, which is deeply involved with the Al-Arians, issued a release saying, "The decision to accept the product of these negotiations was made by the Al-Arian family as a whole. Their concern first and foremost was to end Dr. Al-Arian's suffering. Even after he spent two years in solitary confinement under harsh conditions in a federal penitentiary while awaiting trial, and following his acquittal on the most serious charges, Dr. Al-Arian's conditions of confinement have remained deplorable. His release will also reunite him with his youngest children, who have been traumatized by their father's absence in the past three years." Al-Arian's wife Nahla is quoted saying, "To the Friends of Human Rights and all of our supporters in Tampa Bay, across the country, and around the world, we thank you for standing with us in this struggle. We pray that the success of our case is a sign of brighter days ahead for all those struggling against political persecution, in America and abroad," and the release concluded with a plea for the Al-Arian family's privacy.
• The Tampa Tribune felt vindicated, beginning its April 18 report Al-Arian Admits His Role In Jihad with the lead paragraph, "When Sami Al-Arian denied raising funds for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he now says he was lying." But the Tribune grumpily editorialized that Sending Al-Arian Overseas Hardly Makes America And Allies Safer, grumbling that "the government's anemic result in the first test of the Patriot Act simply transfers the problem to another country. Somehow, we doubt this is what President Bush meant when he talked about fighting the terrorists overseas so that we don't have to fight them here." And on April 19, the Tribune's cartoonist speculated on where Al-Arian would wind up (see the April 19 cartoon on A Chilly Welcome).

• The entire docket was going on-line -- except for the transcripts of proceedings in court. An aide to one of Al-Arian's attorneys told me that they do receive electronic copies of transcripts, so they do exist. And a report for the St. Petersburg Times told me that the Times is paying for copies of the transcripts, but she did not say if the copies the Times was paying for were hardcopy or electronic (I refuse to believe that the Times would shell out cash for hardcopy transcripts if they could get searchable electronic copies for free). A receptionist for the Court informed me that I could purchase hardcopy transcripts if I came to the court in person to pay the page fees and pick up the transcripts, and no, she said that electronic copies were not available. The limits on public access to this voluminous documentation is an issue once their contents are at issue, and the oral plea agreement apparently brings the contents of these transcripts an issue.

End in Sight?

Plea bargains are at best a necessary evil.
Defended as a device for guilty defendents to spare the state the expenses of a trial, plea bargains are all too often used as a mechanism for two legal parties to avoid entering a trial with problematic cases -- thus avoiding the risk of an unpredictable verdict -- and never mind the truth. In essence, the prosecution and defense agree on a count or counts for the defendent to confess to, and then the defendent in open court confesses to the count(s) and also presents details of the acts, said details serving to buttress the defense's position that the defendent is contrite and the prosecution's position that the confession is genuine. Most cases are resolved by plea bargains: it is a lot cheaper than a trial, and the state could never afford full trials for even a majority of the defendents. But the resulting resolutions are believed only by delusional judges; indeed, one of the major controversies in DNA testing is whether or not defendents who have plea bargained their cases (complete with confessions) may now employ DNA testing to challenge their convictions.
Nevertheless, 1,148 days after Al-Arian's arrest, the Associated Press reported in Ex-Professor in Terror Case to Be Deported that Al-Arian had agreed to plea guilty to a "lesser charge" and be deported. By the next day, April 15, the St. Petersburg Times was reporting that Plea may let U.S. deport Al-Arian: The secret deal would have the former USF professor admit guilt on a conspiracy charge, while the Tampa Tribune was reporting that Al-Arian To Be Deported. The situation was not very clear, but the Times reported that Al-Arian would plead guilty to a "watered-down version of Count No. 4" of the indictment (warning: 158-page PDF file): Conspiracy to Make and Receive Contributions of Funds, Goods or Services to or for the Benefit of Specially Designated Terrorists. (This count said that President Clinton's Executive Order number 12947 prohibited various types of support for "designated" terrorists and terrorist organizations; that on January 15, 1995, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was designated a terrorist organization by the Department of Treasury, and that on November 27, 1995, Ramadan Shallah was designated a terrorist by the Department of Treasury; that subsequent to those dates, Al-Arian and co-defendents had provided forbidden support to the PIJ and Shallah and others.)
The Times reported that "The crux of the agreement, according to lawyers familiar with the case, is that Al-Arian helped a PIJ associate, his brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar"; Al-Najjar was never tried on the charges filed against him, he was merely summarily deported to a nation still unnamed and the federal government has recently been attempting to get him back in order to try him. The Times also reported that Al-Arian's wife Nahla was unhappy about the reports of the agreement, saying, "This leak must have come from the Department of Justice in Washington because we and everyone we know have respected the order to keep quiet." Meanwhile, Council on American Islamic Relations Tampa spokesman Ahmed Bedier told the Tribune that -- in the Tribune's words -- "Al-Arian did not agree to admit to any charges associated with terrorism," and quoting Bedier saying, "He stayed true to his convictions - he stayed true he wasn't going to plead to those issues." Al-Arian's former attorney Bill Moffitt explained the reason why Al-Arian would plead guilty: "The government has spent 10 years trying to convict [Al-Arian] ... I have no reason to believe they were not going to try Sami again. Why take the risk? It's a guy with five children. ... If he wins again, don't you think these fools will try him again? It was time for it to be over." (Compare with general comments on plea bargains above.) Finally, Al-Arian's former attorney Bill Moffitt told the Times, "We hope ... it will be over soon and Sami can go home"; but on a perhaps not unrelated case, Al-Arian's co-defendent Sameeh Hammoudeh -- who was acquitted on all charges -- made a similar bargain on a tax case and then, despite the federal government's commitment to return Hammoudeh to Palestine, he remains a prisoner at the pleasure of the Department of Justice while the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency spins rationales for his continuing incarceration.

The Great Writ of Liberty

The words "habeas corpus ad subjiciendum" means "you have the body," and is the title of a writ directed at a party that is detaining a person. Sir William Blackstone called it the great and efficacious writ in all manner of illegal confinement, and can be used not only to win the liberty of a prisoner, but also as a "collateral attack" to test the legality of an imprisonment. Thus it is not surprising that once the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency reached the 90-day limit on detaining Sameeh Hammoudeh, that Hammoudeh's lawyer would file for a writ of habeas corpus (see the March 9 St. Petersburg Times report Lawyer seeks order to free Hammoudeh: The attorney is seeking a writ of habeas corpus to force the government to explain why his client is still detained.) The current explanation that the ICE giving is that Israel will not let the U.S. deport Hammoudeh to Palestine, an assertion that Israel denies; this is the third explanation, the previous two being that ICE disagreed with the jury's verdict, and that the ICE had mucked up the paperwork.
Then on March 19, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the indictment of Sameeh Hammoudeh may have mislead the grand jury. Asking Was indictment misleading? When the government charged Sameeh Hammoudeh with terrorism-related activities, it used wiretap transcripts that may have been unfairly summarized, the Times gave three examples of strange summaries of conversations reported in the indictment. (The story did not mention that the indictment was very hastily drawn and, according to previous reports, riddled with translation errors.) Federal prosecutors declined comment, but a lawyer from a previous celebrated case that blew up over mangled wiretap transcripts -- the Aisenberg trial -- said, "... when it happens rarely, that's too often. Whether reckless or deliberate, it's wrong." Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, the March 20 deadline for the Department of Justice to release or justify the continued incarceration of Hammoudeh came and went, with the blessing of U.S. District Court Judge James Whittemore; see the March 21 St. Petersburg Times story Deadline in Hammoudeh case extended: Sameeh Hammoudeh was acquitted but is still in jail. Then on March 21, ICE decided We don't need reason to hold you, Hammoudeh told: Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers argue they can hold someone six months without justifying it. It seems that in 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Zadvydas v. Davis et al, in which J. Beyer, joined by Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, held that "... the federal courts [have the] authority to determine whether post-removal-period detention is pursuant to statutory authority ... the court must ask whether the detention exceeds a period reasonably necessary to secure removal. It should measure reasonableness primarily in terms of the statute's purpose of assuring the alien's presence at the moment of removal. Thus, if removal is not reasonably foreseeable, the court should hold continued detention unreasonable and no longer authorized. ... It is unlikely that Congress believed that all reasonably foreseeable removals could be accomplished in 90 days, but there is reason to believe that it doubted the constitutionality of more than six months' detention. Thus, for the sake of uniform administration in the federal courts, six months is the appropriate period." Apparently the 11th Circuit reads this to mean that the ICE may detain a deportee for up to six months at its own pleasure, and the Department of Justice now contends that Hammoudeh may not move for release until June, six months after his acquittal.
But on March 22, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore ruled that "The Fifth Amendment is not triggered by the passage of time," as reported in the March 23 St. Petersburg Times report Judge: Hammoudeh can sue ICE now: The federal judge says "One day of illegal detention is a violation of the Constitution.". This did not mean that Hammoudeh would be released, but only that he can now petition the court to be released; further, the judge gave the ICE until May 25 to justify Hammoudeh's continued incarceration. Incidentally, the printed version of the report contained a paragraph excised from the on-line version: in the printed version ("There is no time delay for rights, judge rules"), Whittemore asked about the March 1 St. Petersburg Times report that Israel had no objection to Hammoudeh returning to Palestine -- a news story reportedly entered into evidence by the government, and contradicting ICE's second rationale for Hammoudeh's continuing incarceration -- government attorney Warren Zimmerman derided the report as "hearsay upon hearsay" (which the careful reader will notice is not exactly a denial). It is not unusual for printed and on-line versions of news stories to differ.

Approaching a Decision?

Sameeh Hammoudeh and Sami Al-Arian were still in jail on February 20, largely at the pleasure of the Department of Justice and the enduring patience of the courts, when the USF Oracle ran an interview with him: see Al-Arian reflects on past three years: In only his second interview since being arrested exactly three years ago on terrorism-related charges, former USF professor Sami Al-Arian discusses his trial, the conditions of his incarceration and the suffering his family has endured. Then on Feb. 22, the St. Petersburg Times ran a very strange report, Judge: Hammoudeh should be set free: Immigration officials say he can't be released and deported until a bureaucratic process has been completed, in which Federal Prosecutor Alexis Collins states, in effect, that Hammoudeh is in jail because the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had mucked up the paperwork -- and that Judge Moody had said that while Hammoudeh should be freed, the ICE was likely to defy or ignore a court order to free him.
Hammoudeh's predicament became stranger when federal prosecutors claimed that Israel was obstructing Hammoudeh's return: spokesman Steve Cole is quoted saying, "Diplomatic negotiations with the Israelis are ongoing, very sensitive negotiations, which we hope to resolve as soon as possible." But the March 1, 2006, St. Petersburg Times report Israel denies role in stalled release: Prosecutors say Israel has a problem with Sameeh Hammoudeh. But Israeli officials say he's an American issue, also quoted Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad saying, "He has a Palestinian passport in good standing. He's clear as far as we're concerned," and consulate spokesman Ariel Roman said, "The government of Israel is not involved in why Hammoudeh is not being sent. It is an internal affair of the American government, not Israel." There has been some discussion of (real or imaginary) Israeli involvement in this case, but this appears to be the first allegation of this sort coming from the federal government.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. postponed Al-Arian's (re-)trial until August; of course, the government has not announced whether it intends to (re-)try Al-Arian, but presumably he's being kept in jail for something -- see the March 3 St. Petersburg Times report Al-Arian retrial pushed back till at least August. And on March 3, U.S. Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun finally let Al-Arian's attorneys, William Moffitt and Linda Moreno, off the case, as reported in the March 4 Tampa Tribune story Al-Arian's Lawyers Bow Out Of Case; while no reasons for their departure was announced -- and indeed the Tribune reported that the attorneys declined to say -- Moffitt developed serious health problems during the first trial and Moreno's expertise lies elsewhere.

You were saying???

While the government dithered, a growing number of observers observed that Al-Arian was still detained -- with no pending charges, apparently at His Honor's Pleasure, to use a possibly appropriate Medieval phrasing of the situation. Al-Arian is not exactly the only person detained at the pleasure of the American government at the moment, but his legally anomalous situation creates difficulties for other parties. One of those parties is the administration of the University of South Florida.
On January 26, Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland of the American Association of University Professors -- which had "condemned" USF in 2003 -- sent a letter to USF President Genshaft "to remind her of the commitment she made concerning the AAUP and grievances for former professor Sami Al-Arian" according to a Feb. 9 report by the USF Oracle, Group reminds Genshaft of her Al-Arian statements. The letter does not appear to be mentioned on-line (indeed, the AAUP does not appear to be tracking the Al-Arian case at their website, although they do routinely track their pending censure cases). Anyway, as USF/UFF Chapter President Roy Weatherford notes, Al-Arian "has an active appeal that has not been processed," and that "The explanation at the time was that it couldn’t be processed until the court decisions were in." The inconsistency reportedly noted in Kurland's letter is that between the USF Administration response to the AAUP Committee A report (the response is towards the bottom) that "Once a jury returns a verdict, Dr. Al-Arian may be in a position to then participate in our process, at which time one can better assess dismissing him in light of the evidence of his activities," and the more recent press statement that "USF ended Sami Al-Arian’s employment nearly three years ago, and we do not expect anything to change that."

Approaching a Decision

Then on Friday, January 6, 2006, Judge Moody asked prosecutor Terry Zitek what the government planned to do, and Zitek replied, "I think it would be correct to assume we're going to continue" (see the Jan. 7 St. Petersburg Times story Case will go on, prosecutor says: Prosecutor Terry Zitek says the government is trying to determine which counts it wants to retry). Apparently the problem is that most of the unresolved charges are ancillary to charges on which Al-Arian was acquitted. The Jan. 7 Tampa Tribune quoted Al-Arian's attorney saying that he hoped Al-Arian would be released soon, but that he hadn't made the motion for Al-Arian's release because, "We don't want Dr. Al-Arian whisked away to an immigration facility where we would have difficulty communicating with him"; see Al-Arian Defense Team Makes Pitch To Settle Case; the Tribune also reported that a new trial was unlikely before August.
Then on January 13, the U.S. Department of Justice opposed Al-Arian's motion for acquittal on the remaining charges in its Consolidated Response in Opposition to ... Renewed Motions for ... Acquittal. The Jan. 14 St. Petersburg Times interpreted this as a "peek" at new prosecutorial strategy, as reported in Papers preview tactics for al-Arian retrial: Prosecutors have yet to decide which hung charges to pursue in a new trial of the former USF professor. Meanwhile, Sameeh Hammoudeh, who was acquitted on all charges, remains in prison. He had agreed to be deported in a deal on tax evasion, and the deal apparently included a stipulation that he would be on probation until the deportation. But as the January 19 St. Petersburg Times reported in Al-Arian associate remains confined: Immigration officials are still holding Sameeh Hammoudeh because he could have terrorism ties and as the January 19 Tampa Tribune reported in Hammoudeh Stuck In Limbo, Immigration & Customs Enforcement is keeping him locked up because they disagree with the jury's verdict, although the spokesperson admitted that she didn't understand her own agency's position. U.S Immigration Judge Gail Padgett has decided that she does not have jurisdiction to order Hammoudeh's release, and thought that the authority might lie with an immigration officer, David Wing, who claimed that he did not have the discretion to act. Hammoudeh's lawyer says he will next go to U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr., who had initially ordered Hammoudeh's release, although in keeping with the legal philosophy of the Bush administration, the Justice Department and Immigration Customs Enforcement said that releasing Hammoudeh is an issue for officials, not judges, to decide. But when Hammoudeh's difficulties hit the press, something interesting happened. According to the Jan. 21 St. Petersburg Times story Al-Arian associate may be freed: Instead of being deported, Sameeh Hammoudeh will leave the country voluntarily, immigration officials say, Ms. Hammoudeh got a call from an Immigration official who expressed concerns about "the media attention" and asked if her husband would be willing to just get an airplane ticket and leave. Hammoudeh says yes, and his lawyers were hopeful that Hammoudeh wwould be heading for Jordan the next week.
But by the end of that next week, Hammoudeh was still locked up -- and Al-Arian's lawyers (one of whom has health problems, and the other with a different expertise) were asking to be removed from the case; see the Jan. 28 St. Petersburg Times report Al-Arian lawyers, judge have a closed discussion: The judge says he will reveal why the lawyers want to be taken off the case if Al-Arian is retried on some counts. Still the U.S. government could not, or would not deport Hammoudeh, leading to recurrent chain-jerking. As of Feb. 8, the government had told Hammoudeh's family four times that deportation was imminent, only to change its mind; the fourth time was on Tuesday, February 7, as reported in the Feb. 8 St. Petersburg times story Again, forced apart: They had packed, said goodbye to friends and a pet turtle. But at the last moment, Sameeh Hammoudeh is not allowed to join his family's trip to the Middle East. The fourth time, the government jerked the chain as the family was at the gate, leaving for Ramallah, in Palestine; according to the article, the rest of the family had to take the flight. Tampa's Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Pam McCullough referred reporters to Miami's spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez, who said, "We can only say that he remains in ICE custody. We will not say why, or say when he is leaving for safety and security reasons." On Feb. 14, the St. Petersburg Times returned to the subject with Eager to be deported, Hammoudeh still waits: Despite his acquittal on terrorism-related charges, officials keeping backing off promises to let him leave. Hammoudeh's lawyers, perhaps used to dealing with prosecutors who have to stick to the bargains that they make, accepted four times assurances by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that Hammoudeh would be deported; and yet Hammoudeh is still in jail. A prosecutor who did this would be in deep trouble with the judge, but ICE is different; indeed, Miami immigration lawyer said that this is "Typical ICE behavior," while ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said, apparently without embarrassment, that Hammoudeh was being held under "prosecutorial discretion" as a perceived threat (the law she cited gives ICE up to ninety days of discretion). Hammoudeh's attorney described all this as a "raw abuse of power."
Meanwhile, on Feb. 15, the Federal Court announced that Al-Arian's next trial -- if any -- would be in April, as reported by AP in Possible second al-Arian trial would begin in April.

Retrospectives while Waiting

While observers waited for the Justice Department to make its next move, the media continued to run retrospectives. On Dec. 11, the Tampa Tribune reported that Al-Arian Trial Was Big News In Middle East, quoting Al-Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Alami saying, "People were very interested to know what would happen to a university professor who was speaking his mind"; reporter Chris Echegaray said that "As for Middle Eastern media coverage in general, the trial was reduced to Palestinians against Jews." And on Dec. 12, Time magazine commented on When Terror Charges Just Won't Stick: A jury vindicates a fiery pro-Palestinian professor. Did the feds just waste their time?, contending that "the trial's revelations about his stealth involvement with Islamic Jihad ... have all but wrecked his standing as a spokesman for mainstream Palestinian causes."
As of Tuesday, December 13, the number of hits on google for "al-arian" has spiked up to "about 629,000"; as usual, this site is third, after TBO.com's page and freesamialarian.com. In comparison, "Judy Genshaft" has "about 25,000", "John Sugg" has "about 40,000", "Steve Emerson" has "about 53,300", "Anne Coulter" has "about 106,000", "Patty Hearst" has "about 287,000", Calvin Coolidge has "about 730,000", "Friedrich Engels" has "about 962,000", "David Horowitz" has "about 1,380,000", "Bill O'Reilly" has "about 2,500,000", and "United Faculty of Florida" has "about 20,400". And on Wednesday, December 14, the New York Sun quoted this site's webmaster in its report Calls Begin for Sami Al-Arian To Regain The Job He Held at South Florida U., which quoted me saying, "The rationale [for dismissal] kept changing, and it was not entirely clear what he was being dismissed for ... When someone is being dismissed by a process that seems to be sort of outside the contract or indifferent to the contract, then we start getting worried." On Dec. 15, Law.com commented in When the Best Defense Is No Defense that "Acquittal in terrorism trial described as 'colossal embarrassment' for Bush administration's Justice Department." Also on Dec. 15, the Weekly Planet got several grumps into its Dec. 15 issue, most notably a set of pointed open memos John Sugg sent as a sort of season's greating to Al-Arian, U.S. Attorney Paul Perez, Tampa Tribune reporter Michael Fechter, and freelance writer Steve Emerson (see Take a Memo: Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful, Tribune and Prosecutors; Mr. O'Reilly did not even get honorable mention.

Acquittals & Deadlocks

Apparently there had been a lot of tension in the jury room after all, for on Tuesday, December 7, with the jury still deadlocked on many counts, Judge Moody ended the trial, unsealed the available verdicts, and declared mistrial on the rest. All the verdicts the jury had agreed on were acquittals, and the votes on the unresolved counts had mostly eight or nine jurors in favor of acquittal.

• The jury found Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut not guilty on all counts. Hammoudeh's family has agreed to leave for Ramallah, but Ballut's fate (he had originally sought immunity for testifying to a grand jury, but was refused) is less clear.
• The jury deadlocked on some counts against Al-Arian and Hatem Naji Fariz, the latter of whom was born in Puerto Rico, which could complicate further proceedings against him.

• During the trial, some of Al-Arian's associates and acquaintances had been unpleasantly surprised by his apparent violation of Marquess of Queensbury rules for how activists are supposed to behave, in particular his alleged dalliances with the PIJ and his apparent lack of forthrightness about them.
• Initial reports on the jury deliberations were that the discussions had turned a bit weird towards the end, with a large majority believing that the government had failed to prove much of anything, and a minority insisting for reasons they were unable to articulate that Al-Arian must be guilty.

• The Dec. 7 Tampa Tribune reported that "Tears of joy at the defense table met with blank expressions of shock among prosecutors" ( No Guilty Verdicts In Al-Arian Trial). The Dec. 7 St. Petersburg Times reported that Nahla Al-Arian's response was "God bless America." U.S. Attorney Paul Perez said, "As federal prosecutors, our job is to see that justice is done. We don't keep score on winners or losers. ... The jury spoke, and we're going to live with it. This isn't going to affect the morale of my office or my prosecutors one bit," and the Department of Justice soon said that, "While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court against Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants." Al-Arian's attorney Linda Moreno said, "The Constitution is still alive in the United States of America. ... We believe the jury was under tremendous pressure to convict, which makes this all the more courageous."
• Observers were more severe. Civil Liberties Union Florida Executive Director Howard Simon said, "I think it's an indication that representatives of our federal government have squandered a lot of their credibility." Nicholas Matassini, one of Al-Arian's past attorneys, said, "When I first saw the indictment of Al-Arian, I called it a work of fiction. The jury's verdict bears that out." Bob McKee, another of his attorneys, said, "They had 10 years to investigate this guy, thousands of hours of wiretaps. They had the CIA, the FBI and Israeli intelligence gathering evidence. After all that, they couldn't get 12 people to agree on one count guilty." David Cole, who had represented Al-Arian's brother-in-law, said, ""They never connected Sami Al-Arian to a single illegal act, here or abroad. ... When you fight the war on terror, you need to focus on terrorists, not on people whose political associations you find distasteful."
• There was a sense that the prosecution had somehow blown it or never had it or something: one juror said, "An awful lot trees went into this evidence. But for what purpose, I don't know," and another that, "The evidence wasn't there to put a guilty verdict on it." Jurors reported being heavily influenced by the following passage in the jury instructions: "Our law does not criminalize beliefs or mere membership in an organization. A person who is in sympathy with the legitimate aim of an organization but does not intend to accomplish that aim by a resort to illegal activity is not punished for adherence to lawful purposes of speech." (See the Dec. 7 St. Petersburg Times story, 8 times, Al-Arian hears 'Not guilty'.)
• Al-Arian has critics, and PRIMER founder Norman Gross is one of them: "We're going to be collaborating in our own demise." Stephen Flatow, father of Alisa, a victim of one of the PIJ's bombs, said, "The jury did the best they could do. But the acquittal sets back this type of prosecution. ..." Bill O'Reilly, who had played a major role in starting all this, asked, "Doesn't the government run the risk ... of making this guy into a martyr now?" And the Tampa Tribune, editorialized in its Dec. 7 column The Country He Condemned May Be Ready To Free Al-Arian that "It's unclear why the jury ruled as it did," the Tribune did conclude that "Ultimately, prosecutors could not connect the dots." Meanwhile, on Dec. 8, CNN talked to experts who speculated that the problem lay in weaknesses of the U.S. PATRIOT Act, although former federal prosecutor Stephen C. King said, "The jury simply didn't see the evidence presented at trial as sufficient. That has nothing to do with the investigative tools that were used to prepare the case and secure an indictment"; see Expert: Patriot Act no 'magic bullet': Fired professor's acquittal at terror trial seen as setback. And on Dec. 9, the Tampa Tribune reported that many experts thought that the Trial Set A 'Terrible Precedent' in that, as Monterey Institute for International Studies Assistant Professor Jeffrey Bale put it, "When you've got a situation where you've got a high-ranking support organization in the United States and you can't even prosecute that effectively, it's a terrible precedent." Interestingly, most of the experts cited seemed to be taking Al-Arian's guilt for granted, and there was little concern about the damage to Justice Department credibility should it be seen as persecuting an innocent man.
• Al-Arian had been fired six days after his arrest, and thus two responses are particularly significant. The university administration apparently released a prepared statement -- which it did not post (?!) -- saying, "The University of South Florida is watching the recent legal developments," and then breaking the spell with a dangerously indiscreet "USF ended Sami Al-Arian's employment nearly three years ago, and we don't expect anything to change that." Meanwhile, Provost Renu Khator said, "We’re going to see what happens tomorrow, what exactly comes out and what decision the judge makes."
  Roy Weatherford, UFF Chapter President of USF, said, "At the risk of saying I told you so, I think this again demonstrates the importance of not allowing the punishment to come before the trial." And: "What was important to us was to guarantee that no faculty member be fired because somebody thinks they're guilty of something ... In the very beginning, the university overreacted and decided that they would rather fire someone without due process, and that's all we've ever been opposing."
  Indeed, there was already some speculation over the university's legal exposure, should Al-Arian be in a position to press his case against the Board of Trustees (which he may not be: see below).
• Reactions on USF campus were muted. UFF activist and USF Faculty Senate member Harry Vanden said that the fight at USF from 2001 to 2003 "... has made some watch what they say and do" (see Dec. 7 Tampa Tribune Even With Acquittal, Al-Arian Unlikely To Return To USF). Vanden also said, "I think as the full facts of the verdict in the case filter through, I think it really behooves the University of South Florida and President Genshaft to consider very carefully whether they might want to apologize to Dr. Al-Arian and reinstate him" (see the Dec. 7 USF Oracle report USF mute on verdict).
• As reported in the Wednesday, Dec. 7 Tampa Tribune story Muslims Express Pride In Justice System, Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California said that the verdict was a triumph of "Martin Luther King America" over "McCarthy America," saying "That's the beauty of this country from our perspective ... We have more faith in the people of America than in the government in these trying times. ... This is the real America." And CAIR spokesman Ahmed Bedier said, "I'm proud to live in the Middle District of Florida."
• Despite the All The World Is Watching reactions, pro and con, to the verdict, the world (or at least the media) seemed less interested in Al-Arian than idealists would hope. Lexis listed, under "General News: Major Papers" for the day after the verdict...
  • For "Scott Peterson" on Dec. 14, 2004, there are 34 hits.
  • For "Michael Jackson" on June 14, 2005, there are 211 hits.
  • For "Sami Al-Arian" on Dec. 7, 2005, there are only 17 hits.

• From the Right, Debbie Schlussel explains in Frontpage.com Why Al-Arian Walked, writing, "I ... predicted all along ... that Sami Al-Arian and his three co-defendants would walk. Why? Because our Justice Department, while desperate for victories, is really not serious about the War on Terror."
• From the Left, Joe Kay announces in the World Socialist Web Site that Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian acquitted on charges in Florida, and writing, "The massive attack on democratic rights is not aimed at the prevention of terrorism, but at the prosecution of dissident political views," and warned, "In the future, the criminalization of dissent will be broadened to encompass all those who challenge the policies of the US ruling elite."

• Both Al-Arian and Fariz could be retried on the remaining counts against them, and governments have been known to go for retrials in politically charged cases -- or even to launch new charges (and there have already been discussions of new charges, especially tax charges). The New York Times weighed the alternatives, as reported in the Dec. 8 International Herald-Tribune, U.S. weighs tactics in terror case.
• Hammoudi is leaving the country, while Ballut went back to Chicago, as reported in the Dec. 8 Tampa Tribune story 'After The Mountain Of Hardship, Yes, I Am Free'.

Deliberations

On Monday, Nov. 14, the closing arguments were over, and the case went to the jury. But first, Judge Moody switched to jurors: a juror who had grumbled (in court!) about the Defense was replaced by the alternate who had complained about the grumbling: see the Nov. 15 St. Petersburg Times story Al-Arian jurors switched for deliberations: A juror accused of making pro-government remarks is replaced by the alternate who complained about him. Meanwhile, Al-Arian's attorney has health problems that finally hit the newspapers: William Moffitt has lost 30 pounds over the past few months -- possibly due to an unnamed kidney complaint -- and has dozed in court several times: see the Nov. 15 St. Petersburg Times story Al-Arian's attorney fights fatigue: After five months of testimony and battling health problems, William Moffitt says he is totally exhausted from the long hours.
The media waited a bit noisily for the verdict, and on Thursday, November 17, St Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler commented on the meaning of the verdict before it was in: