[wvns] FEDERAL APPEALS COURT STRUGGLES WITH AL-ARIAN CASE

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT STRUGGLES WITH AL-ARIAN CASE
Josh Gerstein
New York Sun
http://www.nysun.com/article/62436

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A federal appeals court is struggling with the
case of a former Florida college professor who admitted to aiding
Palestinian Islamic Jihad but later insisted that his plea deal
precluded the government from calling him before a grand jury
investigating Islamic charities in Virginia. The 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals heard oral arguments for 45 minutes here yesterday about the
dispute's circuitous journey through four federal courts, resulting in
the professor, Sami Al-Arian, spending nine months in jail, so far,
for refusing to testify before the Alexandria, Va.-based grand jury.

"This is such a mess," one member of the three-judge appeals panel,
Rosemary Barkett, declared.

"It is a mess," the prosecutor arguing for the government, Karin
Hoppmann, replied. "It's a Gordian knot," she added in a later exchange.

A vexing legal problem in the case stems from the fact that the
Virginia-based judge in charge of the grand jury, Gerald Lee, referred
the dispute about the meaning of Al-Arian's plea deal to a Tampa-based
jurist, James Moody Jr., who accepted Al-Arian's plea and oversaw an
earlier trial at which the Palestinian Arab activist was acquitted on
some charges. A federal prosecutor in Virginia backed the referral,
but the government later took the position that referring such legal
questions to another jurisdiction is illegal and unconstitutional.

Ms. Hoppmann, who is based in Tampa, said yesterday that the
Virginia-based prosecutor, Gordon Kromberg, made "a mistake" when he
agreed that the plea issue should be settled in Florida.

A lawyer for Al-Arian, Jack Fernandez of Zuckerman Spaeder, complained
that it was unfair to fault Al-Arian for seeking relief in Florida
when Judge Lee ordered him to go there and the government concurred.
"We're being whipsawed. This is checkmate," Mr. Fernandez said.

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