Karen Greenberg was quoted in a Star Tribune article about the three Somali-American men who have pled guilty in Minnesota’s ISIL recruitment trial.
“We haven’t seen a verdict like this,” said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law in New York. “It will cause a strong reaction.”
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“It stands apart from the other cases,” Greenberg said.
Of the 90 ISIL-related cases that Greenberg has tracked across the country, 40 have been completed. Of those, 35 defendants pleaded guilty before trial and five were convicted by juries. None has been acquitted — a clear sign that American juries are accepting the prosecutions’ view of such cases, say experts who have studied homegrown terrorism.
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Greenberg said American juries appear to view terrorism cases on a different level from other crimes. In the Minnesota case, the FBI built a case around videos the defendants watched, conversations recorded through an informant, and the defendants’ repeated attempts to leave the country, which prosecutors cast as a persistent conspiracy to join a brutal terrorist group.
But none of the defendants actually succeeded, she said, which raises a critical question of how juries see guilt in such cases.
“Where is that line in the jury’s mind between immersing oneself in the content of ISIL and taking action — an action that can get you put away for life?” Greenberg said.
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[T]he convictions should create a greater sense of urgency for the almost universally young, male defendants, their families and the criminal justice system to use the de-radicalization and diversion programs rather than going to trial, Greenberg said.
“You want to find a constructive way out of this,” she said.
