Skip to main content

22-Year Sentence for "Millenium Bomber" Deemed Too Light

A federal appeals court last week threw out the 22-year prison sentence imposed in 2005 on Ahmed Ressam, known as the Millennium Bomber, who plotted to set off explosives at Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve in 1999. The court said the sentence was too light.

A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said Mr. Ressam did not deserve the “substantial reduction” in his sentence from the minimum of 65 years in federal sentencing guidelines because he backed out of his agreement to cooperate with investigators.

The court also called for a new trial judge to consider the next sentence, because the federal judge who issued the original decision had already once declined to increase Mr. Ressam’s prison term.

Ressam was detained in Washington state in December 1999 when he tried to smuggle explosives into the U.S. on a ferry from Canada that he intended to use at the Los Angeles airport. After his arrest, Ressam agreed to cooperate with terrorism investigators, but he later reneged on that promise, the appeals panel said.

U.S. prosecutors said Ressam, 42, cooperated for two years but that his change of heart compromised at least two terrorist cases in the U.S., resulting in charges having to be dropped.

In its findings, the appeals panel said that U.S. District Judge John Coughenour (in Seattle), who imposed the sentence, had failed to consider the potential security consequences, because if Ressam had been released after 22 years, he would still have been only 53 years old.

The case can be found at: 2010 WL 347962 (9th Cir. Feb. 2, 2010)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Second Circuit Holds that Personal Benefit is Not Required for Insider Trading

Insider trading, or “ securities fraud ,” is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 1348 and 15 U.S.C. § 10(b) As the Supreme Court explained in Dirks v. SEC , someone engages in insider trading under §10(b) if they breach a fiduciary duty by disclosing material, nonpublic information in exchange for a personal benefit. However, the Second Circuit’s recent holding in United States v. Blaszczak rejected this personal benefit requirement, at least as it relates to § 1348. The result? The range of conduct that triggers criminal liability under § 1348 is far bigger than the range of conduct that triggers liability under § 10(b). Stated another way, Blaszczak makes it easier for federal prosecutors to go after Title 18 securities fraud because - unlike Title 15 securities fraud - they do no need to prove the existence of a personal benefit.
Post a Comment
Read more

U.S. Supreme Court Eases Rules for Miranda Warning

Last week, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Maryland v. Shatzer . Justice Scalia wrote the opinion, which six other Justices joined in full. Justice Thomas concurred in part and concurred in the judgment; Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment. The Court held that a fourteen-day break in custodial interrogation ends the Edwards v. Arizona rule which states that once a suspect invokes his Miranda rights, any subsequent waiver of the right triggered by a police request is deemed involuntary and is the result of coercion. In reversing the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the Court concluded that Shatzer’s return to his normal pre-interrogation life in the general prison population for a period of two-and-one-half years before re-interrogation constituted a sufficient break in custody enable him to voluntarily waive his Miranda rights. Therefore, the Edwards case did not require that Shatzer’s re-interrogation statements be suppressed, and the Court remanded the case ...
Post a Comment
Read more

California Supreme Court Narrows Exception to the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Requirement

On November 25, 2019, the California Supreme Court overturned a 17-year-old exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. People v. Lopez holds “that the desire to obtain a driver’s identification following a traffic stop does not constitute an independent, categorical exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.” People v. Lopez , No. S238627, 2019 WL 6267367, at *1 (Cal. Nov. 25, 2019). Before Lopez , police were “allowed … to conduct warrantless vehicle searches for personal identification documents at traffic stops when the driver failed to provide … personal identification upon request.” Id . The Court summarized the facts of Lopez as follows: police “responded to an anonymous tip concerning erratic driving.” Police were “(u)nable to locate the vehicle,” so they “asked dispatch to run a computer search of the license plate.” Police “then drove by the address where the car was registered,” but didn’t see a car matching the description. As such, p...
Post a Comment
Read more