REMEMBER THE SHOE BOMBER?

Shoe Bomber Sentence

Remember the "English" guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?

Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio?
Didn't think so!

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say  His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to

Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah,' defiantly stating, 'I think I will not apologize for my actions,' and told the court 'I am at war with your country.'

Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

Judge Young:  'Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the  United States  Attorney General.  On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutively.  (That's 80 years.)

On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed.  The Court imposes upon you for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that's an aggregate fine of $2 million.  The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes.  It is a fair and just sentence.  It is a righteous sentence.

Now, let me explain this to you.  We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid.  We are Americans.  We have been through the fire before.  There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.  Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals.  As human beings, we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant.  You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war.  You are a terrorist.  To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier, you are not-----, you are a terrorist.  And we do not negotiate with terrorists.  We do not meet with terrorists.  We do not sign documents with terrorists.  We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court  You are a big fellow. But you are not that big.  You're no warrior.  I've known warriors. You are a terrorist.  A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders.  In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and the TV crews were, and he said: 'You're no big deal.'

What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific.  What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?

I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing?  And, I have an answer for you.  It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom.  Our individual freedom.  Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.  Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom.  It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.  It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom, so that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.  It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.

We Americans are all about freedom.  Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.  Make no mistake though.  It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.  Look around this courtroom.  Mark it well.  The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. The day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.  The very President of the  United States  through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid?  That's the flag of the United States of America.  That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom.  And it always will.  Mr. Custody Officer.  Stand him down.

So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets?  That was 2001 if memory serves me right.  http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/shoebomb.asp

I have taken this extract from the judge’s speech and checked its authenticity on the Internet.  My reasoning has come over the long campaign I have set against mindless immigration from a culture that neither respects the history of this once great nation, nor the values that have evolved since the turmoil of civil disorder four hundred years ago.  The modern rush to codify every aspect of the Law so that it mirrors the United State is an enormous criminal and intellectual abuse, and has shown through the workings of the Human Rights Act how giving absolute liberty to criminal classes imprisons the law abiding and honest person.  

Teachers either don’t know or refuse to tell students that groups of disaffected British people rebelled against injustice and sought a code of living that suited the New World.  Taking from all intellectual parts of the known world they argued and argued and wrote out a list of promises and expectation that is evolving today.  British law was evolving along parallel lines but with the firm foundation of established law and systems.

The modern politician in his ignorance and haste has destroyed much that is good about our ancient law and as Britons we are now no longer able to say that the Freedoms that our American Cousins pride themselves on and exercise, are shared in this over legislated Hell created by the Blairs and Browns of our time, now expanded by the Cameroons and his school chums.

The recent trial of the immigrants who were raping and trading English children for sex is symptomatic of a country that has lost the integrity of its people and the good common sense of its indigenous masses.  The street that my father was born in is now a foreign enclave with foreign religious places and foreign language.  An MP from a similar background sits as chair of one of the most influential committees in the cesspit called the House of Commons, even though he refused to talk to another committee of the House which was trying to investigate him on charges of malfeasance.  Groups get together for what appears to be the best intention, but because of their timidity and lack of respect for the Rules they have copied the self glorifying and evil sickness of the modern politician, recanting half truths and not recognising lies, worshiping at the altar of collective stupidity.  That is why the mass majority of former servants of Her Majesty do not belong to or attend meetings with cabals and straight forward liars.