http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/30/police-road-rage-leads-to-sword-attack-in-pennsylvania/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/05/california-teen-faces-trial-in-gay-classmate-killing/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/28/convicted-pa-cop-killer-sentenced-to-death/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/23/6-nyc-teens-charged-with-murder-as-hate-crime/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/31/calif-woman-seen-pushing-body-parts-trash/

Terrorist networks are so frightening because they span international borders and do not fall under the control of any nation-state.  This makes them unpredictable and difficult to pinpoint and combat.  A member of a terrorist organization such as Al-Qaeda can be a hardworking, everyday citizen by day and an Al-Qaeda informant or operative by night.  For example, Khalid Quazzani, a naturalized United States citizen was charged with money laundering, bank fraud charges, and sending $23,000 to Al-Qaeda.   The criminal lawyer for Mr. Quazzani has negotiated a plea deal for Mr. Quazzani in exchange for statements regarding Mr. Quazzani’s involvement in the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.  Mr. Quazzani could be sentenced to sixty-five years in federal prison without parole and a fine of up to $1 million dollars.  Al-Qaeda ranks on the United State’s top list of threats to National Security.  As Mr. Quazzani’s sentence shows, any act of support for Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization, financial or otherwise, is treated as a threat to our nation.

In another recent case Syed Hashmi has been tried for conspiracy on federal terrorism charges for conspiring to provide Al-Qaeda with “military gear” and loaning a $300 to purchase a plane ticket to transport the alleged gear to Pakistan.  The “military gear” included items such as sleeping bags, ponchos, and waterproof socks destined for Al-Qaeda use in Afghanistan.  Hashmi’s skilled criminal lawyer fought aggressively and negotiated a plea deal that reduced Hashmi’s sentence from a possible life sentence to fifteen years in prison.  Mr. Hashmi could be released in ten years for good behavior at the soonest and has already been in custody pending trial for four years.

The most recent case of attempted terrorism is the attempted car bomb in New York’s Times Square.  Faisal Shahzad, the alleged perpetrator, has become the face of domestic terrorism, receiving high media coverage due to the severity of the federal attempted terrorism charges and his unabashed demeanor regarding his actions.  Shahzad was arraigned in federal court on charges of attempted murder, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, using a destructive device with an attempted crime of violence, and transporting explosives.  If convicted of attempted terrorism, Shahzad could be sentenced to life in prison.  Shahzad’s federal lawyer has until the next court date in June to decide what the best course of action will be for Shahzad’s case in order to reduce the maximum jail sentence.  The plea deal will likely depend on whether Shahzad is found to be an individual actor or part of a greater terrorist plot, and whether he can be and/or is willing to be an informant for uncovering a larger terrorist network.

Federal terrorism charges are some of the most serious charges that an individual can face and require a skilled federal defense attorney.  The federal government is still refining how to handle terrorist crimes including terrorist threats and attempted terrorism.  Some people argue that the criminal justice system is successful in managing terrorism cases while others believe that terrorism cases are best managed by the military in military court.  It is very possible that the criminal justice system in the future may not only be used to try United States nationals who are charged with terrorist threats or attempted terrorism but also non-Americans who have been found to be a threat to national security such as the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/21/pakistan.times.square.arrest/index.html

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/faisal-shahzad-to-be-arraigned/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/nyregion/28hashmi.html?scp=1&sq=%22ex%20brooklyn%20college%20student%20admits%20conspiring%20to%20help%20al%20qaeda&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/us/20terror.html

However, certain crimes are so heinous that it is difficult to conceive of any justification or imagine the motivation behind the crime.  For example, what causes a person to mark a mentally disabled man with degrading symbols, drag a black man behind a truck until all remnants of life have been torn from his body, or beat a South American immigrant to death because it appeared that he was gay?  Hate crimes are a special class of criminal charges differentiated by the intention behind the crime.  A hate crime is a crime motivated by bias towards ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.  Hate crimes are often punished by a harsher sentence than the same criminal action not motivated by these biases. Hate crime cases are extremely tough for even the best criminal defense attorneys and can carry a punishment up to life in prison or the death penalty depending on the severity of the crime. 

For example, in a recent case three New Mexico men have been accused of kidnapping, branding a swastika, cutting a swastika into the hair, and writing degrading messages all over a mentally challenged man from the Navajo reservation.  The men have been charged with kidnapping, aggravated battery, and causing great bodily harm.  They are already facing felony charges, but prosecutors are also going to fight aggressively for these men to be charged with a hate crime.  If convicted of a hate crime, New Mexico law mandates that one year will be added to the sentence for each charge that they are convicted of.  The alleged perpetrators could receive up to thirty-five years in prison, including eighteen years of incarceration without consideration for parole.   These men will need an experienced criminal attorney to repudiate the hate crime allegations or they could be spending more than a third of their life in prison.   

Is this case a hate crime?  The most grievous allegation against the three men is that they allegedly branded a swastika on the mentally disabled man’s arm using a heated metal clothes hanger.  However, branding itself is not always a crime, much less a hate crime.  A man was recently acquitted of two counts of branding his children in Washington State.  Once again it is all about intent.  The Washington man was acquitted of the assault charges against his children because his criminal defense attorney proved to the court that the branding was not done out of anger or cruelty but was a manner in which the family bonded and demonstrated family unity.  However, given the historic symbolism of the swastika, the ethnic background, and mental disability of the victim, it is unlikely that even a skilled criminal lawyer will be able to dismiss all charges against these men.  The criminal defense lawyer on this case will have a challenge to even rebuff the hate crime enhancement to the kidnapping and assault charges.  During a search following the alleged incident, police found insignia associated with white supremacists, which is one of the foremost groups to be charged with hate crimes.  The best course of action for these men and their criminal defense lawyer could be to negotiate a plea deal since a jury is most likely going to be very unsympathetic towards men with white supremacist sympathies that branded a Nazi associated symbol on a disabled man that could not defend himself.   

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37053787/ns/us_news/

Tito Ortiz has been arrested on charges of domestic violence.   He has been accused of assaulting and beating his girlfriend Jenna Jameson in their home in California.   For those of you who do not know who Tito Ortiz is, he is a 6-foot-3, 205 pound Ultimate Fighting Champion.  This is a man who has made fighting his life passion and work, and who has had considerable success by being strong, aggressive, and fearless.  Ortiz could very probably have higher than average testosterone levels, a chemical imbalance that has been shown to make many men pursue greater risk taking activity and may as in other species lead to greater aggression.   This will be a challenging case for the criminal defense attorney representing Ortiz.  Jameson allegedly sustained visible injuries after the alleged attack by Ortiz and it is likely that Ortiz will be charged with felony domestic violence.  The domestic violence attorney representing Ortiz will have to put up a solid defense in order for Ortiz to retain parental rights of his children and not become convicted and labeled as a spouse beater.  If Ortiz indeed does suffer from genetically high testosterone levels, is this a fact that can be used in his defense?  In many cases physical and mental medical conditions such as Depression, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that affect impulse control are used by criminal defense attorneys to show that their clients could not control their criminal actions.  Ortiz’s domestic violence lawyer should investigate Ortiz’s testosterone levels and if they are higher than average use this as a defense to mitigate felony charges of domestic violence.  If in fact Ortiz faces a greater challenge in controlling anger and aggression, he will need anger management courses and perhaps hormone therapy, not time behind bars.  

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/04/26/2010-04-26_jenna_jamesons_boyfriend_tito_ortiz_charged_with_beating_her_up.html

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51013

Pogan’s criminal defense attorney could use Pogan’s lack of experience to his advantage to reduce the assault charges and show that Pogan used bodily force as a form of self defense. Pogan asserts that he was originally attempting to detain Mr. Long because Long was riding with no hands, through a red light, in the middle of the street.  Unfortunately for Long, the video of the alleged assault shows many other bicyclists doing the same thing.  So what made Pogan single out Long?  Pogan has testified that Long at first appeared to be evading Pogan, but when their trajectories started to cross, Pogan believed that Long was going to try to knock him over by riding through him.  To protect himself, Pogan preemptively knocked Long off his bike before he was knocked over by the cyclist.  Pogan could have made a rookie mistake and miscalculated Long’s intent, or he could have correctly interpreted the situation and taken the best course of action that he could in the moment.  Either way, being charged with assault seems to be a drastic consequence.  As his criminal defense lawyer should point out, everyone knows that you will make mistakes when starting a new job and that it takes experience to do a job perfectly. 

As for the charges of falsifying business records and making false accusations, Pogan’s criminal defense lawyer will need to prove that Pogan did not mean to make conflicting statements but was caught up in the heat of the moment, probably had an adrenaline rush, and did not remember the altercation very clearly afterwards because it all happened so fast.  Mr. Pogan is an upstanding citizen and prior to becoming a police officer had worked as an emergency medical technician. Although this incident and the YouTube video has demonized Mr. Pogan into an attack cop, hopefully his criminal defense attorney will be able to vindicate Mr. Pogan against his assault charges and show that he is still a good man to have around in an emergency. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkiyBVytRQ

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/nyregion/24pogan.html

To begin with, the United States federal government has never won a seditious conspiracy case, conspiracy with aim to overthrow or destroy the state, against a right wing group.  Leonard Zeskind, author of Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstreams writes that in order for the prosecution to prove seditious conspiracy they need more than “wild talk and gun charges” and must prove that Hutaree militia members had “imminent plans to cross the line from speech to sedition”(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-zeskind/strongthe-hutaree-militia_b_519066.html).   The federal defense attorneys representing the nine members state that no crime was committed and that their clients were only exercising their right to free speech and assembly, including the right to dissent from the government.  The defense has already further gained ground by complaining that they have not been allowed to cross examine the undercover agent who collected much of the evidence against the alleged federal conspirators. 

Past precedent in cases of seditious conspiracy shows that in order for the prosecution to win, they will need witnesses that are extremely credible and believable to the Michigan jurors.  Author Leonard Zeskind reminds us it is not a crime in itself to be a “conspiracy besotted gun nut.”  One of the criminal defense lawyers for this case himself is arguing that “all you got is a lot of talk from people who like to dress up in fatigues and carry around guns in the woods.” 

Will the jury find that the nine Hutaree are nothing more than gun totting, boy scout types talking a little smack against the federal government, or will they see them as domestic terrorists with serious intentions to use violence against the state?  In previous trials of seditious conspiracy against right wing groups, jurors have been much more sympathetic with the defense than the prosecution. However, what is novel about this case is that the Hutaree have made statements that they planned on specifically targeting police and their families.  Attacks against police are taken very seriously in this country and assault and battery of a police officer usually carries a greater punishment.  While jurors may be sympathetic against fellow compatriots conspiring against Uncle Sam, planning to attack police officers that work to protect us every day may have crossed the line from to conspicuous to seditious.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/31/michigan.militia.hutaree/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-zeskind/strongthe-hutaree-militia_b_519066.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/us/01militia.html?ref=us