Contact: Gail Short
205-934-8931/[email protected]
STORY: "Significant changes in American terrorism have occurred in the past 20 years," says UAB terrorism expert Brent Smith, Ph.D. "And these shifts in patterns have affected the manner in which terrorists are prosecuted, the defense strategies used by accused terrorists, the way they are perceived by juries and the extent to which they are punished."
WHO: Those are the conclusions reached by Smith in his paper, "The Prosecution and Punishment of American Terrorists: 1980-1999." Smith will deliver his paper during an upcoming conference in Oklahoma City "Terrorism and Beyond the 21st Century" April 16-19, sponsored by the RAND Corp., and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. Smith is a professor of criminology and the author of "Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams" (1994, State University Press). Smith developed a database of indicted terrorists from 1980 to 1989. A database list from 1990-1996 is nearly complete and a list from 1997-1999 is forthcoming. Smith will be available for interviews beginning Tuesday, March 28.
WHAT: "In court, right-wing defendants today behave much like the left-wing terrorists of the 1970s, who were deeply committed ideologically -- often refusing to plead guilty -- demanding of the public attention that a trial brings, and filling the air with political rhetoric. In contrast, right-wing terrorists in the 1980s often turned state's evidence and even sought to disassociate themselves from extremist ideology by filing motions requesting that their affiliation with certain groups not be mentioned at their trials."
But that has changed. "Right-wing terrorists today are significantly less willing to plead guilty and less likely to testify against other participants or leaders in the movements. Since the stand-offs at Ruby Ridge and Waco, right-wing terrorists have become defiant at trial. They often call into question the jurisdictional authority of the federal government through legal motions; attack the integrity of the court-appointed attorneys; and demand the right to serve as either their own counsel; or to seek the advice of a 'common law attorney.'"
A comparison of left- and right-wing indictment counts and case outcomes shows that during the 1980s, less than one-fourth of the leftist defendants pleaded guilty to one or more charges, while nearly one-half of the right-wing terrorists pleaded guilty.
And while in the 1990s, more than half of the aging members of left-wing movements brought to justice pleaded guilty to indictment charges, less than 25 percent of right-wing defendants pleaded guilty.
However, two factors may be hampering efforts to dismantle contemporary terrorist groups:
First, uncoordinated violent strategies such as "fatwa" in the case of Muslim terrorists, or "leaderless resistance," as in the case of right-wing extremists allows terrorist leaders to issue proclamations instead of direct orders to a specific person to commit an act of terrorism. Such methods minimize criminal liability for terrorist group leaders.
"Second, we may be making it difficult to dismantle terrorist groups due to changes in sentencing laws. And we [scholars] are not sure how the U.S. attorneys are handling this. But there is indirect evidence that the goals of the Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic Security/ Terrorism Investigations may be undermined by new sentencing commission guidelines. In the 1980s, the goal of Attorney General's guidelines was to convict the leaders of groups in order to dismantle the organizations. Frequently this would be accomplished through plea bargaining in which subordinates would get time served or probation in exchange for their testimony against the leader. The leaders, in turn, would get harsher sentences and this would help to dismantle the organization. That was successful.
"But today, the sentences given to terrorist leaders is considerably lower. Across the board, sentences against leaders have declined substantially, by two-thirds, and sentence disparity between leaders and subordinates has declined. Federal sentencing strategies may be making it more difficult for prosecutors to use the plea bargaining process as a way of eliciting testimony from subordinates."
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