In Tampa, Ahmed Mohamed and Youssef Megahed — the two former University of South Florida students — have been charged with terrorism counts stemming from a traffic stop in South Carolina. As with many such cases, the government made a great deal over the stop, suggesting a major terrorism coup that found explosive devices in their car near military facilities. As time went on, the allegations proved somewhat laughable as the government struggled to find any way to justify the original press.
In the new superseding indictment, the men are hit with seven-counts including terrorism and weapons charges. A third student has already been convicted. Former USF student, Karim Moussaoui, was convicted of possessing a firearm in violation of his student visa. Now here the rub. Moussaoui’s violation, which gets him a maximum of 10 years in prison, stems from a visit to a firing range when he held a gun for 2 1/2 minutes to pose for a picture. That’s right. That what the government was able to prove to secure a conviction.
The case against Ahmed Mohamed and Youssef Megahed is little better. For the full story, click here.
I don’t recall any such “major terrorist coup” blather at the time at all. Funny how you characterize it as such. It sounded like they had a trunk full of fireworks or something of that order.
Whatever on the “explosives”, it is illegal for a person on a student visa to handle a firearm. If you want to mock his being charged for that; your argument is with the law, not law enforcement.
I have often wondered by what standard do we judge prosecutorial discretion. Judges, depending on whether they are ruling in law (like a criminal case) or equity (like a land partition case) are subject to differing standards on appeal to gauge their decisions. The abuse of discretion standard usually applies in an equity cases, and the concept of legal error usually applies to actions at law, great deference being accorded Judges when they make findings of fact since they actually see the demeanor of the witnesses, and have a flavor for the other evidence.
Prosecutors in their charging decisions seemingly have no such prohibitions, save that they must have a good faith basis to bring the charge based on the law and the evidence. They may not charge citizens selectively, charging some for a given offense, but not others on the same facts. What happens when they arbitrarily charge someone for political or career advancement reasons? I have never seen a prosecutor hauled before a Bar ethics committee to answer for arbitrary conduct, and I bet no one else has either. Maybe we should establish a separate tort for abuse of prosecutorial discretion and waive sovereign immunity in states that have it. The Duke Lacrosse scandal comes to mind.