FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — The failure of federal prosecutors to convict any members of an alleged South Florida terrorist cell after two trials highlights the obstacles in a legal strategy of arresting terrorism suspects before they strike.
The preemption approach has been the Justice Department's mandate since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But moving too quickly may have doomed the so-called Liberty City Seven case by leaving prosecutors without sufficient evidence to back up their allegations that the men wanted to launch a ground war against the U.S. government.
Violent rhetoric caught on tape from the group's leader and a grainy video of the defendants swearing an oath of allegiance to Al Qaeda have not been enough to convince jurors the men were conspiring to join forces with the terrorist group and not, as defense lawyers argued, simply playing along in a scheme for money.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard declared a mistrial after the second jury to consider the controversial case said it had become hopelessly deadlocked on charges that the men had plotted to bomb the Chicago Sears Tower and Miami FBI headquarters.
A trial ended in a mistrial Dec. 13 after jurors agreed to acquit one man but could not reach verdicts for the other six. Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will try the case a third time.
The outcome underscores a thorny question for law enforcement in preemptive cases: when to intervene.
"It's a trade-off, and you want to make that trade-off in favor of public safety, which means arrests are often made before the point where it would be an optimal prosecution case," said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami. "Most of the domestic terror trials have involved seeming wannabes because the government wants to intervene and arrest at the planning stage instead of the bombing stage."
For the Liberty City defendants, the issue is muddied by evidence that the group was disbanding even as law enforcement moved in.
Bruce J. Winick, a law professor at the University of Miami, said that suggests officials had more interest in obtaining high-profile election-year indictments than in waiting to find out the group's intentions.
"In this situation, it didn't really seem that there was any imminent danger of anything," Winick said. "If that's the case, what's the hurry?"
