Turning Sheep into Wolves
Quote:
from Bourbon
I cant help but think that one of these days there is going to be a serious terrorist cell inside our country, and the FBI is going to be judicially hamstrung because they have wasted whatever wiggle room they had - when it comes to entrapment and provocation - on feeble-minded suspects.
Good point.
I'm not a fan of the entrapment defense: subjectively (Another successful sting); analytically in considering individual cases (Augustin Sting Operation Affirmed by 11th Circuit); and objectively in considering its overall failure rate (It usually does fail):
Quote:
2005 Michigan Law Review,
Psychology, factfinding, and entrapment
Although accurate statistical evidence of the frequency with which the entrapment defense succeeds is difficult to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is seldom successful. One survey of practicing criminal defense attorneys described it as "judicially unpopular," (17) best used only "in desperate circumstances," (18) or "in a few cases with ideal facts," where "plea bargaining has proved unsuccessful," (19) and "no other defense is possible." (20) Another survey of State's Attorneys in Chicago reveals a perception that in narcotics sales cases where the defendant pleads entrapment, "the jury will convict almost every time." (21) The author of one police manual on the execution of sting operations states that he has "never, in hundreds of cases, ever lost one to entrapment," and that in all the sting operations he has studied, he has "not heard of a single case being lost to a defense of entrapment." (22)
But, going to the well too often (when the well is already fouled) is potentially not healthy for living prosecutions.
Regards
Mike
U.S. Muslim Terrorism Was Practically Nil in 2012
A different slant, a research study based on indictments, not convictions:
Quote:
...there were nine terrorist plots involving American Muslims in 2012. Only one of them, the attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, actually led to any violence. There were no casualties in that or any other incident.
Link to report:http://tcths.sanford.duke.edu/docume..._final2013.pdf and to short press report:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013...lim-terrorism/
New York’s finest Islamophobes?
Caught via Twitter is a new report on the extensively reported NYPD domestic information gathering operation, co-written by CUNY School of Law and an advocacy group. It is 50 pgs:http://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/cl...ng-Muslims.pdf
There is a wide-ranging article in Salon, with multiple links, which is very critical:http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/new_..._islamophobes/
AQ in the USA: A Complete Analysis of Terrorism Offenses
An abridged edition of a 700+ page research report by the UK branch of the Henry Jackson Society, with a very comprehensive set of figures:
Quote:
.. shows how the terrorist threat within the U.S. has developed, by profiling all AQ or AQinspired terrorists who were convicted in U.s. courts (federal and military) or who participated in suicide attacks against the US homeland between 1997 and 2011.
Link:http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-co...WRES-Final.pdf
The wrong focus, it's not Jihadists
I suspect the recent shootings of Colorado's prisons and two prosecutors in Texas have prompted the CNN piece by Peter Bergen 'Growing threat of extreme right-wing violence':http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/04/op...nce/index.html
At the start:
Quote:
While American politicians and the U.S. public continue to focus on the threat from jihadist extremists, there seems to be too little awareness that this domestic form of political violence is a growing problem at home.
From 2002 to 2007, only nine right-wing extremists were indicted for their roles in politically motivated murders and other types of ideologically motivated violent assaults. But between 2008 and 2012, the number mushroomed to 53, according to data collected by the New America Foundation.
The NAF data:http://homegrown.newamerica.net/
CNN and NAF have some interesting facts / statistics and Peter draws attention to important facts:
Quote:
Fifteen right-wing extremists were indicted in 2012 ...only six people who subscribed to al Qaeda's ideology were indicted on terrorism-related charges in the United States....it's striking that the jihadists charged with crimes were much less likely to have actually carried out a violent attack before they were arrested.
Explosion at Boston Marathon
Breaking...occurred at finish line. I'm on scene now. 1 block from site.
Reports of two explosions. Seems like pipe bombs.