Second Circuit Affirms District Court Judgment in Ghailani
Big news out of the Second Circuit today: a three-judge panel has affirmed the conviction and life sentence of Ahmed Ghailani, for his role in the U.S.
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Big news out of the Second Circuit today: a three-judge panel has affirmed the conviction and life sentence of Ahmed Ghailani, for his role in the U.S. Embassy bombings in 1998.
Ghailani put forth three broad arguments in his appeal: first, that his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated; second, that the district court erred in instructing the jury on Ghailani’s “conscious avoidance” of the unfolding plot, and that the instruction did not account for Ghailani’s genuine ignorance of his co-defendants’ intentions to bomb embassies; and third, that his life sentence was unreasonable, both procedurally (partly because District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan declined to hold a hearing to discuss the reliability of certain hearsay evidence, which was ultimately introduced during sentencing) and substantively (Ghailani was tortured, and received a life sentence upon conviction of a single count, even though co-conspirators were convicted of numerous counts before also receiving life terms).
Among other Lawfare coverage of this case, I covered the briefing in this case this spring, and Matt W. surmised back in May that Ghailani was unlikely to win his appeal.
Here's the summary of the decision, authored by Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes:
In sum, Judge Kaplan presided over this challenging and complex case with exemplary care and fairness, and we detect no error in the various difficult matters decided throughout the proceedings.
- In the circumstances presented here, the District Court did not err (or “abuse its discretion,” as that term is properly understood) in determining that the nearly five-year delay between the defendant’s capture and his arraignment, during which time he was interrogated as an enemy combatant and detained at Guantanamo Bay, did not constitute a violation of the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment.
- The District Court did not err either in charging the jury with a conscious avoidance instruction or in formulating that instruction.
- The defendant’s sentence of life imprisonment, based on a conviction for conspiring to destroy United States buildings and property and directly or proximately causing the deaths of 224 people, was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable.
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
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