See? Civilian Trials Do Work.

The Holder Justice Department has proven its mettle. They told us that civilian trials for terrorists were a good thing, and that they were absolutely sure they could get convictions. And by God, they were true to their word. On Wednesday, a civilian jury convicted former Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of conspiracy to destroy buildings and property belonging to the United States. Victory is ours!

Or is it? Ghailani was convicted of a relatively minor felony, and will face sentencing of a minimum of twenty years (much of which will not be served in prison). How did Holder's boys do on this case? Well, they got a conviction on 1/285th of the charges against Ghailani, which included 224 murder counts. That's a rate of 0.3%. And the Holder boys argued the case so well, including jury instructions, that the dumb-ass jury was able to conclude that Ghailani conspired to commit mass murder and mayhem, but didn't know enough of the details to be convicted of any of the results of those conspiracies.

Ghailani, who is an enemy combatant, was involved in the Dar es Salaam bombing in Tanzania (his home country) and the US Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya (Obama's home country?). In total, 224 humans perished, including 12 American citizens. Over 4,500 people were seriously injured. If Ghailani had been convicted of one--just one--of the murders, he would have been facing a life sentence.

And the Holder boys were really good at judge shopping. They found the most liberal non-constitutionalist "make it up as you go along" judge available at the time. You might be able to guess where the judge is coming from based on his expression of gratitude to the jurors. Normally, a judge says something like "the jury is thanked and excused from further duty." In a particularly knotty case, the judge might also thank them for their patience and attention in such a difficult matter. That wasn't enough for US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the matter of this Manhattan jury. Said Kaplan: "You deserve a lot of credit. You have demonstrated also that American justice can be delivered calmly, deliberately and fairly by ordinary people--people who are not beholden to any government, including this one."

I'll sleep better at night knowing that. How about you? This ass-hat not only thanked the jury, but got a chance to take a slap at the American people, common decency, clear evidence, and the amateurs who "prosecuted" the case. I do have to admit that this was a result of Biblical proportions. In my busy criminal defense practice I never got a not guilty verdict on 284 out of 285 counts in any case. In fact, I'm not sure I got 284 not guilty verdicts in my first ten years of practice, and I had one of the best defense records in a very pro-prosecution county.

Even on the facts, evidence and testimony the jury was allowed to hear, there should have been guilty verdicts for at least 224 of the counts simply because of their finding of guilty on the conspiracy charge. But the defense argued so well, and the prosecution prepared so poorly that the jury was left with the idea that a conspirator who knew all the details that formed the conspiracy didn't contemplate the bloody deaths the conspiracy would produce. Shades of Lee Harvey Oswald, they bought the defense argument that Ghailani was merely a patsy. And based on lousy jury instructions, they believed that a dupe couldn't be guilty of mass murder (if he was actually a dupe at all).

But they didn't get to hear extremely damning evidence and testimony that tied him not only to the conspiracy, but to active participation in the actual carrying-out of the plots. That was because a liberal judge, following the liberal line of civilian jurisprudence, excluded the testimony of an interrogator who had used enhanced interrogation techniques which were both legal and acceptable at the time of the interrogation. But we civilians are so damned civilized that we must recoil in horror at a little rough interrogation while "finding the best" in mass murder. That's the American way. Aw, hooey!

Without objection from the "prosecutors," Kaplan instructed the jury that Ghailani had to be proven to have known "at least one of the unlawful objectives of the conspiracy," and that they must also find that "prosecutors proved the defendant voluntarily and intentionally participated in the venture as something he wished to do." The latter half is not a standard jury instruction, and the "prosecution" should have demanded an instruction that if the jury found that the defendant entered knowingly into the conspiracy, then ipso facto they must find him guilty of the acts in furtherance of the conspiracy--in other words, the murders. Only an idiot would believe that if you conspire to place explosives in heavily trafficked or highly-populated locations, multiple deaths will not ensue.

And the "intent" was not properly instructed on. One need not intend consciously to kill large numbers of people by setting off huge explosions. This is what is called "implied malice" or such a reckless and wanton disregard of the consequences of the intended act as to rise to the level of intent to kill. Planning on blowing up a rural post office where the plotters thought there would be nobody in the building at night has been found to be murder, even though all that was "intended" was a political protest. A trio of drunks were found guilty of murder for firing rifles into the windows of a moving passenger train "just for the fun of scaring people." The intent was to scare, the result was two deaths, and the conviction for murder was upheld.

With the help of the judge's instructions and the lethargy of the "prosecutors," the jury found the terrorist guilty of the conspiracy to "blow up buildings" during business hours, but couldn't make the connection to the unlawful homicides with the malice aforethought that went with that conspiracy. I've seen tougher judges and more competent prosecutors in municipal court cases where the charge was accessory to a trespass. A foul and inhuman mass murderer has been given a slap on the wrist for 224 human deaths. The deaths of people literally blown to pieces or so horribly maimed and injured that they didn't survive surgery and the best efforts of the medical profession.

Would the result have been any different in a military tribunal? The answer to that is about 99 and 44/100ths percent "yes." The testimony and evidence produced by the government interrogator would have come in. No touchy-feely "we're too civilized for that" crap, since the interrogation was both legal and commonplace at the time. No Obama-like sympathy for the "victim" (who is actually the perpetrator) and the "rule of law" which most assuredly was not the rule of law at the time of the interrogation. Kaplan applied current interrogation rules foisted on the military and intelligence agencies by the Obama-Holder deadly duo to an event that occurred long before those rules were imposed.

In addition, there was considerable "top secret" information which could have been used in the military court, but was not presented in the civilian trial since nobody from the judge to the court stenographer can be trusted to keep a secret for more than three minutes. We'll probably never know how damning that evidence would have been. Still it's likely a very safe bet that the testimony would have established a pattern of action (modus operandi) in multiple related matters that would tie the defendant directly to both conspiracies that worked and conspiracies thwarted because of the evidence obtained.

In case you're interested in the testimony that was suppressed, one of the "prosecutors" tried to call Hussein Ababe as a witness. Judge Kaplan would not allow the testimony in because Ababe, who admitted to selling five crates of TNT to Ghailani just before the Dar es Salaam attack was first named by Ghailani during an enhanced interrogation conducted by the CIA. The cocksure "prosecutor" had called Ababe a "giant and critical witness who would tie Ghailani directly to the murders and prove Ghailani's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." After fumbling the motion to suppress, the "prosecutors" were left with a moderately strong but almost entirely circumstantial case.

So now we're left with an Obama administration that wants to close Guantanamo and a Holder Justice Department that could best be described as the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Dismissing the Black Panther voter intimidation cases was a political disaster and a miscarriage of justice. But at least nobody was actually maimed or killed. Blowing a case of mass murder because of the arrogance of an incompetent Attorney General who is too good to try cases in a military tribunal is the worst kind of dereliction of duty. Holder should get his walking papers before a liberal civilian judge and twelve morons convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of conspiracy to litter while dismissing all terrorism and murder charges against him in his 9/11 trial.