Dallas Criminal Lawyers - Broden & Mickelsen

Dallas County Exonerations

    Recently in the media there have been numerous stories about the exoneration of inmates from the Texas prison system.  Texas has had more exonerations than any other state and Dallas more exonerations than any other city.  Most of these exonerations have come about as a result of the noble efforts of the Texas Innocence Project.  This nonprofit organization has sought cases in which an inmate's credible claims of innocence could be corroborated by DNA testing that was not available at the time of the offense.  Given that most credible claims of innocence are not subject to such verification this phenomenon strongly suggests there are many innocent people languishing in prison.
    Why is Dallas ground zero for these exonerations?  I think there are two principal reasons.  The most often cited reason is that Dallas County maintains its evidence in relation to closed cases longer than any other county.  This means many more defendants from Dallas County can verify there claims than in other counties.
    The other reason is more troubling.  In my opinion there exists in Texas institutional hostility to the idea of exoneration.  In most cases Texas judges have resisted efforts to have the State make evidence available for the defense for DNA testing.  In general, in the numerous efforts I have been involved in to free someone unjustly imprisoned, I have found most Texas judges reluctant to even give my claim a fair hearing.
    Why is this so?  In Texas judges are elected.   As a result most judges come from the ranks of the prosecutor's offices and run on a tough on crime platform rather than a do justice platform.  Acknowledging the incarceration of the innocent is simply bad politics.  In addition, most judges feel overwhelmed with their case load that is generated by new arrests and charges.  They have a natural reluctance to carefully reexamine cases once litigated. 
    I don't think these observations fully explain what is happening but appear to me to be two important contributing factors.  I only hope the public awareness of these exonerations will make more people interested in electing fair judges rather than tough judges.

Gitmo Bay Detainees Argument before the Supreme Court

    Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments concerning the rights of detainees in Guantanmo Bay Detention Camp to challenge their continued detention by means of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.   To put this issue in perspective consider the following plausible hypothetical.
     Imagine, in late 2002 you are a young Afghan male.  Like most young men in war torn countries you had to choose sides, and you chose the side of the Taliban.  You consider yourself a good Muslim and dislike U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly the U.S. continued support of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  Al Qaeda is an organization you know of by reputation and you've been told that good Muslims such as yourself generally should support it.   You have been convinced that the September 11 attacks are part of a Zionist conspiracy to justify a "crusades" style occupation of Islamic countries.  While on patrol you encountered a unit of US Special Forces soldiers who captured you.   Within a short period of time you found yourself imprisoned in a country that you had previously never heard of, Cuba, half-way around the world.   Since your arrival, five years have passed.  You have had no contact, even by letter, with family or friends.  One brief hearing was held regarding your case, the significance of which you did not really understand.  You believe a determination was made that you were an "enemy combatant."  You've tried to find out when you might be released and the only answer you were given was, "When we win the war on terror."  Given the uncertainty and isolation with which you are confronted you are depressed and often contemplate some means of committing suicide.
    Do you have any meaningful legal rights?  Are you doomed to languish for the rest of your life as a prisoner of an undefined war with no discernible end?  These are the questions that lie at the heart of the case being argued before the Supreme Court today.
    In the case of Rasul v. Bush, decided in 2004, the Supreme Court held that the detainees could challenge their detention in Federal court pursuant to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.  After this decision, Congress stepped in and passed legislation intended to block the detainees' access to Federal court.
    In the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfield, decided in June 2006, the Supreme Court held the military commissions created by the Bush Administration to process the claims of the detainees was unlawful.  The Court also held the Geneva Convention to be applicable.  The Court did not create any immediate remedy for the detainees, however.
    What the Supreme Court is unlikely to focus on in the immediate case is the practical problem created by the Guantanamo Detention Camp.   There is no foreseeable end to the war of terror.  Should that mean the detainees should be imprisoned for life without any meaningful trial?   On the other hand, if any of the detainees happened not to be radicalized before their detention, they are almost certainly committed enemies of the United States now.  How as a practical problem are they ever going to be released?  Even putting the question of their future threat to the United States aside, what country is going to accept them?  Naturally, the current U.S. friendly government in Afghanistan does not want responsibility for them.   If they originally came from other countries such as Saudi Arabia, those countries likely will also be unwilling to accept them. 
    Keep an eye out for the Supreme Court's decision sometime next year in this landmark case.  I will try to fairly summarize it here for the lay reader.

   

Holy Land Foundation Trial

After deliberating for over two weeks, perhaps the most lengthy deliberation in Texas history, the jury finally returned a verdict (sort of) in the Holy Land Foundation trial.   Before explaining the whacky verdict, let me first give an overview of what was at issue in the trial.

The Holy Land Foundation is a muslim charitable organization that is based in Richardson, Texas.   Mostly muslims contribute to the foundation which then directs the money to aid organizations in Palestine.  (Not Palestine, Texas)   Hamas is a politcal and military organization which operates in the Middle East.   One of the goals of Hamas is to drive Israel from its postion of control over the Palestinian territories.   One of the tools that Hamas employs in its war with Israel is the use of suicide bombers.   In the 1990s the United States government designated Hamas as a terrorist organization making it essentially illegal for anyone in the United States to interact with Hamas.

The core accusation in the Holy Land Foundation trial was that the foundation was intentionally giving indirect aid to Hamas.  As stated, Hamas is not only a military organization, but a politcal organization.  As  a politcal organization it gives aid to the people in Palestine generally, and in particular gives aid to the surviving relatives of suicide bombers.  The government alleged that the individuals who operated the Holy Land Foundation were intentionally alleviating Hamas of the financial obligations it would otherwise have undertaken so that it could expend more funds on military and terroristic operations.  The defendants asserted that did not know that the aid their foundation was providing was indirectly aiding Hamas, and nor was it their intention to do aid Hamas.

The defense team consisted of some of the best criminal defense lawyers in the local area and few national luminaries such as Nancy Hollander and John Klein.   The trial was lengthy, complex and often excruciatingly tedious.  After the evidence was submitted to the juries things really began to fall apart.

Apparently, a few days into deliberations one juror couldn't handle the pressure and literally attempted to bolt from the courthouse.     An alternate juror was placed on the panel and deliberations began anew.   Then the jury sent a note to the judge stating that some of the jurors refused to participate in votes on the 160 some odd counts alleged in the indictment.  Finally, the jury reported that it had reached a verdict.  The judge was at a conference, however, and he ordered the jury to come back the following Monday to return the verdict in open court.   When he opened the sealed envelope, surprise!, the jury had in fact reached a verdict on only a small portion of the counts.   Then when the judge "polled" the jury in open the court as to whether the verdict form accurately reflected their verdict, at least one juror changed her mind and said it did not.   One defendant was acquitted on all counts but one, and for everyone else the end result was a mistrial.  Millions of dollars of taxpayer money expended for nought.   The government has promised to retry the defendants and the judge has promised that he will not be the one presiding over the second trial.  (Who can blame him?)  There is no word yet to which judge the case will be assigned to the case or how many of members of the defense team will be willing to participate in the redux.  Perhaps with the passage of time the prosecutors will mellow and think of better ways to expend the taxpayers' dollars than in a multimillion dollar trial that may very well result in another hung jury or more acquittals.