Judge Ronald L. Ellis, Bernard L. Madoff, Aafia Siddiqui (2001,2008)
Calm Judicial Eye in Storm Over Bail
This was the headline January 13 in the New York Times over a profile of the federal Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis. He ordered that Bernard L. Madoff, self-confessed embezzler of $50 billion, remain free on bail in his East 64th St. penthouse apartment in Manhattan.
The article went on to praise Judge Ellis' "calm demeanor" and noted: "He's very steady, impervious to the politics of the day, and takes his role as a dispassionate observer very seriously."
Bernie Madoff
The Bernie Madoff case has been covered ad nauseam though the actual details of the scam remain sketchy. But it is worth noting that while free on bail Madoff has been "gifting" diamond-encrusted Cartier and Tiffany watches and jewelry to family and friends and has signed checks worth $173 million "waiting to be sent out" to them. All this is justified by the judge apparently under the rationale that Madoff is able to finance his own "house arrest" in his penthouse. And in a final surreal touch, Madoff himself, not any outside auditors, has been entrusted with conducting the initial inventory of his assets.
The Madoff ruling seems a world removed from the last time Judge Ellis made headline news in the Times. That was on August 5, 2008 when he made the news for denying bail:
Scientist Tied to Al Qaeda Is Ordered Held Without Bail
(Note the vaunted NYT objectivity with the "allegedly" missing from the headline. In fact, no ties to Al Qaeda or terrorism were even alleged in the indictment.)
The prisoner denied bail was 36 year old Aafia Siddiqui, a native of Pakistan and a legal resident of the United States since 1990. She was not charged with terrorism. She was only charged with attempting to kill U. S. soldiers and FBI agents while she was being interrogated by them in Afghanistan. The prisoner, who weighs less than a hundred pounds, was alleged to have seized the M-16 rifle of one of her seven interrogators and fired at them. None of them was hurt. None of them has been charged with negligence.
The prisoner was then sudued by being shot, mainly in the abdomen, and transported post-haste to the U. S. to stand trial.
From various press accounts, she appeared to be still suffering from the effects of her shooting two weeks earlier. It later came out that a kidney had been removed during her interim medical care in a prison facility in Texas. She appeared severely malnourished, weighing less than 90 pounds, as well as disoriented and incoherent.
According to observers from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Aafia's family: "Her physical condition was deplorable, the effects of years of torture, abuse, and continuous rape. She badly needs immediate medical treatment outside the Carswell prison where it's not given. Her wound was oozing blood, and her clothes were soaked in it. Her teeth were removed. Her nose was broken and improperly reset. Her gunshot wound was incompetently dressed, and her overall condition is dire and life-threatening."Not only was bail denied, Judge Ellis also denied her lawyers' request that she receive medical treatment at a regular, non-prison facility.
As of January 13, 2008, Aafia Siddiqui is still in detention. In November, a different Federal judge declared her "unfit for trial", but she was still not released from prison. The timing and nature of further proceedings are unknown at this time.
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Comparison of the two rulings brings up a host of questions.
- Is there one law for the rich and one for others?
- Is there one law for Muslims and one for others?
- Do we have an independent judiciary or a subservient one?
- Will any of this change under the new Administration, especially as it applies to the conduct of trials under the catch-all rubric of terrorism?
Even outside the narrow ambit of the judicial proceedings themslves, the treatment of Aafia Siddiqui raises many questions about the War on Terror. For those interested, I provide a synopsis below, expurgated of the most graphic imagery and charges. Some of these can be found in the links provided. Here on Open Salon in August, ktm and ondelette had provided excellent analyses of the torture and other aspects of the case.
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Aafia Siddiqui
Aafia Siddiqui, born in a Pakistan in 1972, a legal resident of the United States since 1990, received her undergraduate degree from M.I.T and and a doctorate from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. The press often refers to her as a "neuroscientist", conjuring up images of bioterrorism and worse, when the truth is more mundane. Her field is cognitive neuroscience, her dissertation was computer modeling adult learning behavior.
After finishing her studies in the late 1990's, she lived in the Boston area, married, had two children, then went back to Pakistan in 2002. She was pregnant with her third child and estranged from her husband. Most accounts agree on the essential details till this point.
Then, in early 2003, she "vanished". The FBI claimed (in background briefings, officially it had "no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities") that as a long-time Al-Qaeda member she was operational in Afghanistan. (The FBI also claims she was in Liberia in 2001 trafficking in "blood diamonds", at a time when she clearly was in Boston.) Her supporters and lawyers say she was "rendered" by the CIA, with the help of the Pakistani authorities, and held at the infamous Bagram Air Force Base for the next five years.
And just as suddenly as she had vanished, she surfaced in July 2008. Around that time, the Caged Prisoners organization and Yvonne Ridley started a publicity campaign to free the Gray Lady of Bagram (an odd resonance with the NYT, known as the Gray Lady!), the sole known woman prisoner there, dubbed Prisoner 650.The campaign gained significant momentum when Imran Khan, a prominent Pakistani politician but even more famous as a legendary Pakistani cricketer (Pakistan is cricket mad), joined the cause.
Almost as if in response, Aafia Siddiqui, with her twelve year old son, was reported "captured" by Afghan authorities in Ghazni, 150 km. away from Bagram. The Afghan authorities allege (see video below) that she was equipping her son to be a suicide bomber and planning to blow up "important landmarks in Ghazni."
She was then transferred to the FBI and US forces for interrogation, when the events described earlier followed. In the grand jury indictment, there is no mention of the Afghan allegations. But she is alleged to have possessed "documents describing the creation of explosives" and by now the usual and customary maps of New York City, pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building (this while wandering around in Ghazni, Afghanistan, attempting to blow up their "important landmarks").
The whereabouts of Aafia Siddiqui's three children are unknown.
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(The three-minute video below is mostly in Urdu, which I understand, and (apparently) Pushtu, which I do not. The proceedings are translated into English in the crawl beneath the images.)
Notes:
(1) See U. S. District Court Criminal Docket USA v. Siddiqui for the judicial proceedings through 11/17/2008. Note that Judge Ellis' rulings appear not to be available online. Judge Pittman's order for a medical examination was construed as not requiring medical personnel from outside the "prison system".
(2) The Republic Forum provides the most complete archives and chronology of the Aafia Siddiqui case to date, fully linked to public news sources.
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Comments
A worthy comparison AND a useful summary of events. We cannot ask for more on these pages.
Some things I do know, though
1) You ask some very valid questions regarding consistency. There are some clear issues here in that Siddiqui does need medical treatment and clearly is not a flight risk in her fragile state. Different judges have different takes on pre-trial detainment and the extent of protection. But it's not out of the question that Judge Ellis might have been influenced by a political climate that is much harsher on suspects with middle eastern heritage being brought up on charges of terrorism.
2) Courts do treat white collar crime differently from violent crime. Generally speaking, defendants in crimes where blood is not shed tend to get more freedoms and more leeway. Is this appropriate to some extent? Yes. Leaving aside the issue of flight risk, the fact remains that a "paper criminal's" power to do furhter harm is pretty limited, while a violent offender could always harm someone else. Statistically speaking, recidivism is high among violent criminals, so this is not an uninformed prejudice.
None of this is to say that I approve of rendition or torture or mistreatment of detainees. I don't. And I ascribe to the principle my Judge taught me -- that we owe an even higher standard of care and protection to pre-trial detainees than even that set out in the 8th Amendment, because they have not yet been convicted and are still blameless in the eyes of the law until they are.
But there are perfectly legal and appropriate reasons why a detainee like Siddiqui might be held without bail, particularly since at least some of the charges she is up on involve her activities influencing others to commit acts of terrorism. From a jail cell it is easier to monitor her communications and prevent such activity from happening. Without written opinions discussing why Judge Ellis chose to deny bail in one case and grant it in another, we're really specultaing.
Even more than than the injustice in the bail hearing, what stand out for me are the bizarre, cooked up stories the security agencies concoct and get away with . I don't think they expect anyone to really believe them. In the show trials in the satellite countries behind the Iron Curtain in the 50s, the prosecutors read from literally the same script (written by Moscow) with the names changed, regardless of which country the trial was being held in! Tony Judt describes these in chilling detail in his book: Postwar.
This is what we seem to have come to. The question that you ask re the next Administration I don't think has that hopeful an answer from preliminary indications.
WOOF
You posed several questions:
* Is there one law for the rich and one for others?
* Is there one law for Muslims and one for others?
* Do we have an independent judiciary or a subservient one?
* Will any of this change under the new Administration, especially as it applies to the conduct of trials under the catch-all rubric of terrorism?
I assume these were intended as rhetorical questions since the answers are all too obvious.
If deterrence exists at all, it exists with people like Madoff and his cronies, rather than some strung-out crack addict holding up a 7-11 to feed his habit. I am quite serious when I say it would be helpful to society to execute a few people like Madoff on television.
Who is it that are the terrorists?
Who is it that are the "good guys".
When I see who is doing what to whom, I wonder whether being anti-American isn't truthfully just being anti-terrorist.
I cannot tell you how much I wish this wasn't happening.
We have, it seems, become, ourselves, the evil that we profess to fear.
Bravo.
ktm, you and ondelette deserve a lot of credit for breaking this story on OS in the first place.
Woofie, thank you. I think your "show trial" statement is very apt, if there are any trials at all! I think the authorities, as exemplified by Rumsfeld, Cheney et al, and their minions are totally, brutally cynical and secure in their knowledge that they will never be called to task.
Liz, thank you for your long and even-handed comment. The documents in the case (in fact, information in general) are hard to come by, protected by the aegis of state security, I suspect. I have put in some links in my next piece, but Ellis' rulings in this matter are undocumented, unavailable even through a Lexis and Westlaw search. To most interested observers the crucial part of the ruling was not the denial of bail but the refusal to have the prisoner treated at an outside medical facility. "Securing" prisoners in such situations is apparently fairly routine, especially in NYC. The speculation is, and I tend to agree, that the authorities do not want outside medical personnel, who might be more objective or sympathetic, to be able to examine trauma which may have occurred prior to the shooting.
I'll respond to the other comments shortly. Thanks again.
Undertow, thanks. While there does seem to be a "debate" about the Madoff case, there seems to be none over the Siddiqui case.
Larry, exactly.
Thank you, Stellaa. That's the highest praise one should expect. And coming from you, whose writing I truly respect, that touches me greatly.
Thank you, Critical Mess, especially for your support on "People's Picks" as well as writing to the Editors. I am afraid though that this torture thing is a bit passé. If it's kept under the rug, maybe people will forget about it and the rest of us can go on with our lives. Till the next time.
Based on this, I think you should send your article to the Obama mamas. I have "Digged" your piece.
o'stephanie has a good piece today on Human Rights Watch.
WOOF
2. Is there one law for Muslims and one for others?
3. Do we have an independent judiciary or a subservient one?
4. Will any of this change under the new Administration, especially as it applies to the conduct of trials under the catch-all rubric of terrorism?"
1. Yup
2. Yup
3. That was rhetorical, right?
4. See above.
thumb
While I agree with Liz Emrich that there may be "perfectly legal and appropriate reasons why a detainee like Siddiqui might be held without bail, particularly since at least some of the charges she is up on involve her activities influencing others to commit acts of terrorism," Siddiqui's extremely serious medical condition (and her also serious psychological condition) argue for doing everything possible to ensure that she receives the best possible care. While federal district court judges do not usually issue written opinions on whether to grant bail, a written opinion should have been issued here, so that the parties, the legal community, and the world would know exactly what standards were being applied.
It should also be noted that Judge Ellis is about as far from a Bush conservative as it is possible to find in the federal judiciary. A former lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Ellis is one of the most progressive judges in the country.
On the other hand, it is unfortunately not unusual even for progressive judges to capitualte to prejudice against those who are preceived to be threats to the nation -- as in the infamous Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), in which Justice Douglas voted (along with Justice Black) to validate the internment of Japanese Americans. As the great Justice Frank Murphy (a man not nearly well known enough or properly appreciated) wrote in his dissent, both Douglas and Black condoned "the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy."
I fear that a similar racism, fear, and failure of progressive principles is at work in Judge Ellis' bail decision in the case of Aafia Siddiqui
"FINAL MADOFF PLUNDER PLAN
$50B SCAMMER WAS SET TO SEND KIN, PALS $173M: FEDS"
"The defendant has shown at this point he cannot be trusted," the US Attorney's Office wrote in a Manhattan federal court filing. "The only thing that prevented the defendant from executing his plan to dissipate those assets was his arrest by the FBI on Dec. 11."
Prosecutors on Monday asked Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis to promptly jail Madoff, 70, after learning he had mailed out more than $1 million worth of antique watches and other jewelry around Christmastime to his two sons, brother and two friends.
Those mailings "blatantly" violated a court order barring Madoff from dissipating his assets - which could be used as restitution to thousands of victims if he is convicted, prosecutors said.
If he is allowed to remain free - albeit under house arrest in his Upper East Side penthouse - Madoff could wreak more economic damage by giving away assets, prosecutors claim, saying he represents a serious flight risk."
Post 9/11, this seems to be operating not only against Arab-Americans but South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Nepalis, Afghans et al), many of them rounded up en masse with "terrorism" as a pretext then quietly "disposed of" generally after in camera hearings.
Designanator, I agree with you re Madoff. It would seem Ellis ruled exactly the opposite of what most people might think of as "just" in each case.
Texas Bubba, I hear you. But if I were on a jury, the story of a 90 lb. woman surrounded by 5 GIs and 2 FBI men, able to get a gun off of one of them, fire at them, not hit any one, and be gut shot for her pains...would be way, way over my bar for reasonable doubt. Also the bail decision is not the primary thing IMO but the decision regarding her medical care.
Thank you all for your comments.
That said, I agree that the result here can also be fairly interpreted as unjustifiably lenient in comparison to cases such as the one you cite. The bail determination alone, however, is not in and of itself indicative of systemic bias.
What if--I'm just saying--an upper level Homeland Security official let the judge know that it was in the US interest to keep maximum security surrounding Aafia. Indeed, she suffered rendition and torture. We definitely don't want any real doctors to see her.
Power works behind the scenes.
Me? I would think that Madoff is a flight risk. Ooops, he slipped away and flew to Latin America.
Sometimes, I do not think the best of people.