Tagged: terrorism

REMINDER: The Newburgh Sting – HBO Documentary Screening with Director and Attorneys

On February 3, 2015 at 6:00 pm in the Moot Court Room of the Gerber Glass building at Pace Law School, the Criminal Justice Institute and Criminal Justice Society at Pace Law School will host a screening of the HBO Movie The Newburgh Sting, with the film’s director, David Heilbroner. This film, which was shown at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, tells the story of United States v. Cromitie, a 2013 terrorism case that arose out of Newburgh, New York and was tried in White Plains. The defendants were young men who joined the efforts of an undercover FBI agent posing as a terrorist in his plan to bomb a synagogue in Riverdale. United States v. Cromitie, 781 F. Supp. 2d 211 (S.D.N.Y. 2011). It has been said to involve the most outrageous government entrapment methods of any post-9/11 terrorism case. But did it? Or was it rather a successful prosecution of young men willing to join the efforts of an apparently well-armed, well organized terrorist? The jury took eight days to render its verdict, rejecting the entrapment defense. The defendants were sentenced to twenty-five year prison sentences. The Second Circuit affirmed in a divided opinion. United States v. Cromitie, 727 F.3d 194 (2d Cir. 2013).

After the screening, the attorneys involved in the case will join the director for a panel discussion addressing the many provocative issues raised by the film. Among these issues are:

  • Were the defendants entrapped as a matter of law or were they properly convicted for willingly joining a terrorist plot?
  • How can the government discover and prosecute people who are not members of a known terrorist organization but who are willing to join a plot to bomb US targets?
  • What are the differences between a film director trying to show “what happened” and a lawyer trying to prove “what happened” in a courtroom?
  • What do those differences say about our criminal justice system?
  • What do these lessons mean for lawyers and law students?

Several of the attorneys taking part in the panel discussion are graduates of Pace Law School: Susanne Brody is a 1988 graduate and an attorney with Federal Defenders of New York; Heather Bird is a 2010 graduate and is an attorney in Toronto, Canada; Gonul Aksoy is a 2008 graduate and an attorney with a White Plains firm; and Giovanni Rosania is a 2006 graduate also in private practice in White Plains. The panel also includes two well respected and well known criminal defense lawyers who were defense counsel in the case: Sam Braverman of Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, LLP, President of the Bronx County Bar Association, and Kerry Lawrence of Calhoun & Lawrence, LLP, a former Assistant United States Attorney.

The Pace Criminal Justice Institute generates educational opportunities for Pace Law students and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars, policymakers and practitioners in and outside the Pace community. The Institute supports and encourages creative research, teaching, and discussion concerning the theory and practice of Criminal Law. The Institute created and maintains an online forum, Pace Criminal Justice Blog, fostering and encouraging the discourse of important current issues in domestic and international criminal law and procedure.

The Newburgh Sting – HBO Documentary Screening with Director and Attorneys

On February 3, 2015 at 6:00 pm in the Moot Court Room of the Gerber Glass building at Pace Law School, the Criminal Justice Institute and Criminal Justice Society at Pace Law School will host a screening of the HBO Movie The Newburgh Sting, with the film’s director, David Heilbroner. This film, which was shown at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, tells the story of United States v. Cromitie, a 2013 terrorism case that arose out of Newburgh, New York and was tried in White Plains. The defendants were young men who joined the efforts of an undercover FBI agent posing as a terrorist in his plan to bomb a synagogue in Riverdale. United States v. Cromitie, 781 F. Supp. 2d 211 (S.D.N.Y. 2011). It has been said to involve the most outrageous government entrapment methods of any post-9/11 terrorism case. But did it? Or was it rather a successful prosecution of young men willing to join the efforts of an apparently well-armed, well organized terrorist? The jury took eight days to render its verdict, rejecting the entrapment defense. The defendants were sentenced to twenty-five year prison sentences. The Second Circuit affirmed in a divided opinion. United States v. Cromitie, 727 F.3d 194 (2d Cir. 2013).

After the screening, the attorneys involved in the case will join the director for a panel discussion addressing the many provocative issues raised by the film. Among these issues are:

  • Were the defendants entrapped as a matter of law or were they properly convicted for willingly joining a terrorist plot?
  • How can the government discover and prosecute people who are not members of a known terrorist organization but who are willing to join a plot to bomb US targets?
  • What are the differences between a film director trying to show “what happened” and a lawyer trying to prove “what happened” in a courtroom?
  • What do those differences say about our criminal justice system?
  • What do these lessons mean for lawyers and law students?

Several of the attorneys taking part in the panel discussion are graduates of Pace Law School: Susanne Brody is a 1988 graduate and an attorney with Federal Defenders of New York; Heather Bird is a 2010 graduate and is an attorney in Toronto, Canada; Gonul Aksoy is a 2008 graduate and an attorney with a White Plains firm; and Giovanni Rosania is a 2006 graduate also in private practice in White Plains. The panel also includes two well respected and well known criminal defense lawyers who were defense counsel in the case: Sam Braverman of Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, LLP, President of the Bronx County Bar Association, and Kerry Lawrence of Calhoun & Lawrence, LLP, a former Assistant United States Attorney.

The Pace Criminal Justice Institute generates educational opportunities for Pace Law students and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars, policymakers and practitioners in and outside the Pace community. The Institute supports and encourages creative research, teaching, and discussion concerning the theory and practice of Criminal Law. The Institute created and maintains an online forum, Pace Criminal Justice Blog, fostering and encouraging the discourse of important current issues in domestic and international criminal law and procedure.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Confronts a Challenge to Its Legitimacy

POST WRITTEN BY: Prof. Peter Widulski, Assistant Director of the First Year Legal Skills Program and the Coach of International Criminal Moot Court Team at Pace Law School

On Thursday, May 29, 2014, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) held a hearing on charges that it had issued on April 24, 2014, against two Lebanese journalists and two media organizations for contempt and obstruction of justice. The charges alleged that the journalists contravened the Tribunal’s order by publishing the names of witnesses who might appear for the Prosecution in the major criminal case before it. As reported earlier this year, the STL has indicted five members of Hezbollah for responsibility in connection with a February 14, 2005 bomb attack that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and about twenty other victims.

According to the Daily Star of Lebanon, Ibrahim al-Amin, editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar, one of the journalists charged with contempt, appeared at the May 29 hearing via video-link from a remote room from which he walked out after vehemently denouncing the contempt proceeding as politically biased and illegitimate.

In his prepared statement to the Tribunal, Amin, referring to the fact that the STL was set up by the U.N. Security Council in cooperation with the Lebanese Government, said, “I do not accept the legitimacy of this court which was invented by the Security Council, which has never guaranteed global security.” He added that “[w]e all know that local, regional and international powers which stand behind the creation of the tribunal are the same that instigate enduring wars in my country, against my people, and against its heroic resistance that is standing up to American, European and Israeli terrorism.”

The contempt proceeding has added to the troubling factional political controversies confronted by the STL. The outcome will have significant implications for the effectiveness and credibility of an international criminal tribunal – especially one that seeks to pursue a mandate issued by the Security Council.

The Death Penalty and the Boston Bomber

Pace Law School Professor – an expert in the field of international law and its application in the U.S. courts – Thomas M. McDonnell shares his view on the debate of whether to impose the death penalty in the Boston bomber case.  Where do you stand on the death penalty?

BY THOMAS M. McDONNELL

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bomber, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, a capital offense. Given the enormity of his crimes, many have called for the imposition of the death penalty. Below is the conclusion to an article, The Death Penalty:  An Obstacle to the War on Terrorism?, I wrote in connection with imposing the death penalty on those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.  Some of the arguments therein likewise apply to Tsarnaev’s case.

The thundering weight of the crimes of September 11 inevitably demands the maximum punishment that our judicial system allows. If anyone deserves the death penalty, then those who planned and actively participated in the September 11 conspiracy do. The United States will almost certainly execute those, like Mohammed Shaikh Khalid, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Abu Zubaydah, assuming, as expected, they are found responsible for the attacks. Yet as we enter the third year in the “war on terrorism,” the euphoria of the seemingly quick victory in the largely unilateral war against Iraq is beginning to give way to recognition that we need the United Nations, the help of our allies, and respect for the rule of law.

Similarly, the natural demand for retribution after a terrorist organization has committed mass murder and other heinous crimes needs to be tempered by the fact that carrying out the death penalty may strengthen the terrorists. Given the perceived and actual grievances that the Arab and the greater Islamic worlds have towards the West in general and the United States in particular, carrying out such executions will probably tend to inflame the Arab and Islamic worlds, increase their support of terrorist movements and thwart cooperation with our allies, almost all of whom have abolished the death penalty. In addition, assuming the evidence at trial fails to show that Zacarias Moussaoui directly participated in the conspiracy to carry out the September 11 attacks, executing him may be contrary to our current death penalty jurisprudence and would appear unjust to our allies and the Islamic world alike. Even if the evidence shows that Moussaoui directly participated in the September 11 conspiracy, executing him will, as the Kasi case so well illustrates, almost certainly make him the twentieth martyr for Muslims.

Because, however, we routinely carry out executions on individuals such as Paul Hill, the anti-abortion killer, who murdered two persons, a physician and his bodyguard, how can we not execute one who, at the very least, was actively involved in an organization that killed over three thousand innocent people? We should, however, learn from the mistakes and the successes of Great Britain in fighting the IRA, that executing politically motivated agents of terror is likely to spawn greater terrorism. Such restraint is a surer path towards isolating al Qaeda and its allies in the lands of the aggrieved and the repressed. The death penalty is a luxury that we can ill afford in this international struggle.

Related Readings