U.S.: Underwear bomber's guilty plea proves terrorism should be fought in courts

[SpartanDem]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including conspiring to commit terrorism, in a major surprise on the second day of his trial.

U.S. officials called the successful conviction a sign that terrorism can be dealt with in civilian courts.

No sooner had proceedings gotten under way in U.S. District Court in Detroit than Judge Nancy Edmunds called a 45-minute recess to take up an important matter.

When Abdulmutallab returned, his standby defense lawyer, Anthony Chambers, said his client had decided to plead guilty – as charged.



Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20111012/NEWS02/111012020/U-S-Underwear-bomber-s-guilty-plea-proves-terrorism-should-fought-courts?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|FRONTPAGE

[NightWatcher]

1. We'll torture them till they plead guilty, then we don't need to prove anything in court

[Robb]

2. From the opening it looked like the not-guilty plea was quixotic.

Prosecution's case was rock-solid, boringly so.

I suspect Abdulmutallab was just trying to find the best time to make his big anti-US statement, and this was it.

FWIW CBS news did one of their http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/12/national/main20119175.shtml">interactive timeline thingies at the end of their story on this.

[chill_wind]

3. And here's another interesting factoid- he was able to be held in a low-security prison.

@emptywheel

"Now we have guilty plea, here's a detail most don't know.
UndieBomber has been in low-security prison since arrest"
1.usa.gov/bi4RvU

FCI Milan
http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/mil/index.jsp

August 2011
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/08/08/the-undiebomber-trial-gets-interesting/

[alp227]

4. Good. Terrorists=criminals, and they should be tried before courts,

and only if they're part of a government that declared war on the US should the military try terror suspects.

Terrorists successfully prosecuted in US federal court: Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Zacarias Moussaoui, Najibullah Zazi, the Unabomber, and many others. Guantanamo though has convicted only THREE since 2002!

[No Elephants]

5. His guilty plea? And here I thought it was the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment.

U.S. officials are now getting our concepts of Rule of Law from what terrorists plead?

Any port in a storm, but geez.

Apparently, the oldest victim of the attacks on September 11, 2001 was the Constitution of the United States.

ETA: After posting, I realized that the above might terrify many Americans, so I am being more specific: I meant that the parts of the Constitution that protect individuals seem to have fallen victim to the 911 attacks, not the entire Constitution.

Parts that empower the federal government to ensure that interstate commerce flourishes and to wage wars not only survived, but seem to be doing better than ever, now expanded way beyond the contemplation of the Framers to include things like faux wars and private armies and application of the Bill of Rights (such as is left of it, anyway) to corporations.