New York Daily News
Sunday, July 2nd, 2006
We approach our nation’s birthday after what seemed a very good week for some very bad guys of two very different sorts.
First, on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration does not have the legal authority to conduct military tribunals for Osama Bin Laden’s former driver and other suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.
Then, on Friday, Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein tossed out the conviction of two former NYPD detectives even though he believed they were guilty of committing numerous gangland murders.
“It will undoubtedly appear peculiar to many people that heinous criminals such as the defendants, having been found guilty on overwhelming evidence of the most despicable crimes of violence and treachery, should go unwhipped of justice,” Weinstein said in his decision. “Yet, our Constitution, statute and morality require that we be ruled by the law, not by vindictiveness.”
Weinstein could have just as easily been talking about the Al Qaeda case as he then cited Ex Parte Milligan. This was a Civil War case where the Supreme Court ruled that a civilian named Lambden Milligan should not have been tried before a military tribunal.
“Even during the great emergency of the Civil War, the courts rejected the theory that the rule of law could be twisted to meet the exigencies of the moment,” Weinstein noted.
But, where Milligan managed to elude the hangman and eventually escape punishment altogether, Bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, and the other truly dangerous types from our present war are certain to remain in custody.
And, even if the Court of Appeals does not reinstate the conviction of “Mafia Cops” Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, their crimes remain, and they are not even close to home free.
That is of little immediate comfort to the victims’ relatives, but they should not direct their anger at the judge or what one grieving daughter called “the whole criminal justice system.”
Weinstein warned early on that he was dubious of the government’s attempt to circumvent the five-year statute of limitations on racketeering cases by tacking on unrelated drug charges. He described the issue as “a ticking time bomb that can be exploded at any time.”
The feds already had received a much earlier warning from the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which proposed the two ex-cops be prosecuted in state court on murder charges, for which there is no statute of limitation. Edward Hayes, the attorney who represented Caracappa at trial, notes that the evidence was particularly strong in the killing of Israel Greenwald.
“They had the guy who ordered the killing, they had the guy who buried the body and they had the body,” Hayes said on Friday. “They would have had a legitimate murder case.”
But the star witness was doing heavy time in federal prison, and the federal prosecutors held the keys. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office seems to have had little choice but to go along.
If the verdict in federal court is not reinstated, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office will have a chance to prosecute the Mafia Cops, as it originally hoped.
At the same time, the Bush administration will no doubt devise a legal way to bring the Al Qaeda killers to justice.
And, we will have proven once again to be a people who ultimately honor the law even under the most extreme provocation, even when facing purest evil. We will still be living by our founding principles, such as determined that Civil War case cited by Weinstein.
“The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, under all circumstances,” the Supreme Court held back then.
In truth, what seemed a very good week for the bad guys marked the approaching anniversary of 230 very good years for the good guys. We arrive at our nation’s 230th birthday still with what our founders intended us to be on that first Independence Day – a country where the only king is the law..
