Real Judge vs. Activist Judge (You make the call)

Ruling by Judge William Young – A Real Judge

U.S. District Court Judge William Young made the following statement in sentencing "shoe bomber" Richard Reid to prison. It is noteworthy, and deserves to be remembered far longer than he predicts. I commend it to you and to anyone you might wish to forward it to.
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January 30, 2003 United States vs. Reid. Judge Young: Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General.
On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other. That's 80 years.
On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million.
The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.
The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.
The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.
This is the sentence that is provided for by our statues. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.
We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.
Here in this court , where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice, you are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.
And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.
In a very real sense Trooper Santigo had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.
What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.
It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We are about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden, pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.
Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.
The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.
Custody Mr. Officer. Stand him down.

Report on ruling by Judge John C. Coughenour – An Activist Judge

Jul 28, 9:40 AM (ET)
By GENE JOHNSON

SEATTLE (AP) - The sentence itself was fairly straightforward: An Algerian man received 22 years for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium. It was what the judge said in imposing the term that raised eyebrows.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics.
"We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel," he said Wednesday. "The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart."
He added that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have made Americans realize they are vulnerable to terrorism and that some believe "this threat renders our Constitution obsolete ... If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won."
Critics of the Bush administration - mostly human-rights groups and Democrats - have long accused the U.S. government of unjustly detaining terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, as well as a small number of American citizens who have been designated enemy combatants.
U.S. Attorney John McKay said he agreed with the judge's comments that U.S. courts are equipped to handle terrorism cases. He would not comment on the judge's criticism of military tribunals and the handling of enemy combatants.
The comments were only the latest surprise in a terrorism case that began on the eve of the millennium when Ressam was arrested as he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with 124 pounds of bomb-making materials. Prosecutors said he had attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and was intent on bombing Los Angeles International Airport.
Facing up to 130 years in prison after being convicted of terrorist conspiracy and explosives charges in 2001, Ressam began cooperating with authorities in hopes of winning a reduced sentence. He told investigators from several countries about the operation of terrorist camps and disclosed the identities of potential terrorists, the use of safe houses and other details.
Ressam's information was given to anti-terrorism field agents around the world - in one case, helping to prevent the mishandling and potential detonation of the shoe bomb that Richard Reid attempted to blow up aboard an American Airlines flight in 2001.
Coughenour has called the information Ressam provided "startlingly helpful."
"It is a flat fact that law enforcement, the public and public safety have benefited in countless ways" from Ressam's cooperation, defense lawyer Thomas Hillier said.
However, prosecutors said Ressam put their cases against his alleged millennium bombing co-conspirators in jeopardy when he stopped cooperating with the government in 2003, citing the stress of solitary confinement.
Prosecutors insist that without his testimony they will have to drop charges against Abu Doha and Samir Ait Mohamed. Both men are awaiting extradition to the United States - Doha in Britain, Mohamed in Canada. McKay said that aside from immigration violations, he did not know what charges officials in Europe or Canada might pursue against them.
"It means that two other individuals who we believe to be dangerous will not be prosecuted in this country," said McKay, who was seeking a 35-year sentence for Ressam.
During the hearing, Coughenour unexpectedly called Andy Hamilton, a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Ressam at trial, from the courtroom gallery to give a sentencing recommendation.
After noting that Ressam's sentence would be "perhaps the most important sentence this court has ever had," Hamilton told the judge that Ressam's reluctance to cooperate further should weigh heavily.
"You can't be a cooperator and a terrorist," he said. "When he stopped cooperating, he went back to being what he was."
Ressam did not speak in court, but provided a short written statement in which he thanked the judge, renounced violence of any kind and apologized for his actions, Hillier said.
With credit for time served and three years off for good behavior, Ressam could be out of prison in 14 years.


Note the way the message ended with Judge William Young and the way the article ended with Judge John C. Coughenour. One terrorist goes away for life and the other could be back on the streets in 14 years. In my book… a plea-bargain with terrorist is going too far. You don’t cut deals with them and you definitely don’t allow activist Judges to release them back into society for ‘good behavior’. Terrorist like Ressam and Reid had every intention of killing as many Americans as they possibly could. While Judge William Young seemed to understand this…Judge John C.Coughenour saw it more important to admonish the US Government for fighting the terrorist as enemy combatants and not as common criminals. If you can see a stark contrast between these two rulings then you can see why the placement of Judges is a vital and their rulings should be scrutinized at every level.

AZ