Jose Padilla, the convicted terrorist who once called the Fort Lauderdale-area home before joining the ranks of al-Qaida, faces up to life in prison at his resentencing Monday in Miami federal court.
But his defense attorney hopes a judge Wednesday will postpone the sentencing until January, so Padilla can improve his mental health by visiting with family members in the meantime at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.
Padilla, 42, is serving a 17-year prison at the maximum security prison in Florence, Colo.
“Since his arrest in May of 2002, the government has systematically attempted to destroy Jose by psychologically torturing him and imprisoning him under the severest of conditions,” Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, who represented Padilla at his 2007 trial, wrote in court papers.
“Not surprisingly, this psychological torture has taken a toll on Jose.”
Federal prosecutors voiced strong opposition to the delay, unless Padilla’s defense lawyer were to request a competency examination of his client.
Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that the one-time “enemy combatant” — perhaps better known as the “dirty bomber” — should receive harsher punishment reflecting his extensive criminal record.
The appellate court found that U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was too lenient when she “unreasonably discounted” his criminal history before lowering a potential 30-year-to-life sentence.
Padilla, born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, was a former Chicago gang member with 17 arrests and a murder conviction before becoming a recruit for al-Qaida, according to federal prosecutors.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the controversial case back to Cooke to resentence Padilla, who trained with al-Qaida the year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to trial evidence.
Caruso appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Cooke “imposed a fair and reasonable sentence.” But the high court declined to hear his petition.
The appeals court in Atlanta, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the terrorism convictions of Padilla and two others: Adham Amin Hassoun, a Palestinian who had met him at a Broward mosque in the 1990s; and Hassoun’s colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a U.S. citizen of Jordanian descent. They were sentenced to 15 years and eight months, and 12 years and eight months, respectively.
All three defendants, convicted of conspiring to support Islamic extremists overseas, sought a new federal trial based on claims of improper testimony by the lead FBI agent and a terrorism expert, along with insufficient evidence and other allegations. Padilla also challenged Cooke’s decision to reject a motion to dismiss his indictment based on “outrageous government conduct” while the former enemy combatant was held in a Naval brig before his transfer to Miami to face terrorism charges in 2006.
Padilla was held without being charged in the South Carolina brig for 3 1/2 years — time that the Miami judge cut from his sentence.
The appellate court, in an opinion written by Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina and joined by Judge William H. Pryor, sided with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. Prosecutors, who were seeking life imprisonment for Padilla, appealed Cooke’s 17-year sentence. They argued the judge’s prison term was 13 years below the low end of sentencing guidelines — 30 years.
The appellate court wrote that Cooke’s punishment “reflects a clear error of judgment about the sentencing of this career offender.” The court noted that his codefendant, Hassoun, had no prior criminal history but received a sentence that was “only” 20 months less than Padilla’s.
Cooke “attached little weight to Padilla’s extensive criminal history, gave no weight to his future dangerousness, compared him to criminals who were not similarly situated, and gave unreasonable weight to the condition of his pre-trial detention,” Dubina wrote.
In a dissent, Appellate Judge Rosemary Barkett countered that Padilla’s sentence “should not be disturbed.” Barkett said “doing so simply substitutes sentencing judgment for that of the trial judge” with the inherent authority.
