Group Highlights Three Concerns with Trial

Oct. 28, 2005

Trial of Sami Al-Arian - Statement by Tampa Bay Friends of Human Rights

This statement highlights three examples of a pattern of decisions that could set dangerous precedents for future trials in the United States. The trial of Sami Al Arian and three co defendants is now in its fifth month. The statement was read on Oct. 25, 2005, by Pastor Warren Clark, First United Church (UCC) of Tampa, at the press conference held by the Tampa Bay Friends of Human Rights in front of the Federal Courthouse in Tampa, Florida.

At the beginning of this trial, the Tampa Bay Friends of Human Rights stood here and said, "Everyone deserves a fair trail." Now a pattern of decisions raises questions about this trial's fairness. This is a landmark case, and precedents can be set that will be used in future trials.

Today we highlight three concerns:

1) Change of venue. There had been a decade long pattern of highly charged newspaper stories about one of the defendants in this trial. Surveys conducted before the trial indicated it would be very difficult to select a jury where all the members would be free of pre-judgments. Surveys of other cities in the South East indicated much lower levels of pre-trial judgment by potential jurors. In the future, this trial may be used as precedent for lowered standards on legitimate motions for change of venue.

2) Continuance of a juror who was seeking to influence other jurors to pre-judge this trial. It took a lot of courage for two jurors to speak up and ask the Judge Moody to remind jurors that they are not to discuss the trial among themselves. They said that one juror was doing this repeatedly, seeking to influence other jurors. This is precisely why there was a motion for change of venue. Yet even after this was brought out into the open, this juror continues to sit on this trial. This is happening when there are a number of alternate jurors.

3) Guilt by web site association. The McCarthy Era was dangerous to our basic freedoms because of guilt by association. Now in the age of the internet, this is being taken to a new level. Here's what's at stake: If you click on a web site, anything on that web site that could be damaging to you in a trial can be used against you.

Not only that, information on any other linked web site can also be used against you, even if you never went to those sites. But there is more: If you are a co-defendant, as in this current trial, and
one of the other defendants clicked on a web site, then that information can also be used against you! If this becomes admissible in American courts the potential for high-tech McCarthiasm is real.
We will enter an age of inquisition by web site association.

We held up a goal at the beginning of this trial - that all of us would be able to say, no matter the outcome, that this was indeed a fair trial. These three concerns signal a pattern of decisions that
put that goal at risk. The last thing this community needs is to be divided about the justice of the outcome of this trial.

As religious leaders we stand before this federal court house lifting up a vision for a better country based on the rule of laws fairly enacted. It is precisely in controversial cases like this that our system is tested. The rule of law is central to the religions that sprang from God's covenant with Abraham and Moses. The prophet Amos spoke God's word to us for all time: "Let justice
roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream." (Amos 5:24) We are here because we want that mighty river of justice and fairness in our American tradition to remain strong.