A federal appeals court threw out the convictions and sentences of five men accused of being Cuban spies, ruling Tuesday that their trial was not fair because of community prejudice and extensive publicity.Several days ago, I stumbled upon a Cuban website dedicated to the Miami 5 [Spanish] [Miami 5 - English (as of post time the English site had not been updated since June 20; sloppy propaganda, comrades!)] not knowing that a decision in their legal appeal was pending.
Here is a link to the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion in the Cuban Five case: USA v. Ruben Campa 01-17176 [PDF] [Why don't reporters include the name of the case when they report on a legal decision?]
Of course, changing the venue from Castro-hating Miami in a case involving Cuban spies is a no-brainer. How many Miami jurors would risk the wrath of the anti-Castro Cubans to aquit suspected Cuban spies?
The defendents have several other issues with the fairness of their trial:
Campa, Gonzalez, Guerrero, Hernandez, and Medina argue prosecutorial misconduct regarding the misconduct of a government witness and during closing argument, improper use of the Classified Information Procedures Act, improper denial of a motion to suppress fruits of searches under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Batson violations, insufficiency of the evidence regarding the conspiracy to transmit national defense information to Cuba, improper denial of a jury instruction regarding specific intent, and sentencing errors. Campa, Gonzalez, and Medina contend that the evidence was insufficient on the counts relating to violations of the Foreign Services Registration Act. Campa and Guerrero maintain that the district court improperly denied their jury instruction on necessity and justification. Hernandez raises the denial of a motion to dismiss Count III based on Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act jurisdictional grounds and insufficiency of the evidence for conspiracy to commit murder. Because we reverse their convictions based on the denial of their motions relating to change of venue, we do not address these additional issues.The five admitted to being Cuban agents--spying on 'terrorist' Cuban exile groups opposed to Castro, not the U.S. government. All five were accused of "conspiring to act as agents of the Republic of Cuba without registering with the Attorney General of the United States." I wonder how many CIA agents register with foreign governments? Why would we expect foreign spies to follow this law?
Duelling links--we link, you decide:
National Committee to Free the Five
Cuban American National Foundation
God our security,
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988
who alone can defend us
against the principalities and powers
that rule this present age;
may we trust in no weapons
except the whole armor of faith,
that in dying we may live,
and, having nothing, we may own the world,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
--Janet Morley, All desires known, 1988
