Terror prosecutions fall sharply

A new study finds that the number of terrorist prosecutions has fallen sharply, as prosecutors reject cases due to lack of evidence:

In 2001 and 2002, the Syracuse study found, federal prosecutors turned down only about 35 percent of the referrals brought to them in international terrorism cases. But that rate has climbed sharply over the last four years, with rejection rates of 77 percent in 2003, 65 percent in 2004, 82 percent last year and the 91 percent this year.

Last year, the Justice Department prosecuted 46 international terrorism cases — down from 355 in 2002 in the spike that followed the Sept. 11 attacks — but it declined to bring charges in 209 cases the F.B.I. or other agencies had referred, the study found.

The statistics “raise profound questions about how well the government is doing in dealing with this very difficult problem of terrorism,” said David Burnham, co-director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which conducted the study by obtaining hundreds of thousands of records through a lawsuit brought under the Freedom of Information Act.

“It is clear that the prosecutors are deciding that a lot of the investigations being recommended do not cut the mustard and do not meet their standards,’’ Mr. Burnham said.

In all, the study found that in nearly 6,500 cases treated by the Justice Department as “terrorism” investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks, about one in five defendants have now been convicted. The median sentence for those convicted in what were categorized as “international terrorism” cases — often involving lesser charges like immigration violations or fraud — was 20 to 28 days, and many received no jail time at all, the study found.

These guys must be really scary if they got 20 to 28 days in jail! I mean seriously, this is just laughable. These guys are going after illegal aliens, kids on dope, and street bums and charging them with terrorism. It's just ridiculous.