Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security, was quoted in ABC News where she analyzes sentencing by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis in Minnesota terror cases.
Davis’ spectrum of sentences is expected to set the pattern for other Islamic State-related terrorism cases across the country — only about half of 110 have been resolved, according to Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law.
He provided some “much needed” rationale behind his decisions, too, Greenberg said. He partly followed a standard legal pattern in which defendants who cooperate get less time and those who don’t get the harshest sentences, she said. But Davis made it clear early on that he wanted to take a nuanced approach due to the age range — 19 to 22 — treating defendants individually and looking for alternatives to incarceration when appropriate. He even traveled to Germany to meet with a noted deradicalization expert.
“The message he’s sending is we can do intervention and here’s how to do it. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time. … This is really taking the lead nationally,” she said.