Padilla's lawyers tried to argue "defensive jihad" as a justification - to an American jury?

Question

Now that's what I call desperate.

Answer 1

You'e expect anything less from a lawyer?

Answer 2

Here we have yet another example on this forum of someone asking a question based on a misunderstanding of a subject, or a misreading of headline, and then all the answerers responding to the question as if it were gospel.

In the first place, Padilla, an American citizen, has been held for years by the government, initially without access to counsel, charged first with one crime and then another. Finally, when the government was about to be forced to present it's evidence on the "dirty bomb" charges, the government lawyers suddenly changed their tune and accused him of nebulous "jihadist" activities. Padilla's lawyers claim that, for this and other reasons, he has in fact done nothing, and is merely a scapegoat in the Bush administration's War on Terror. But that is, of course, what the trial is all about, i.e., to determine if Padilla has indeed committed a crime.

The prosecution is claiming that Padilla was trained in, and intended to participate in, jihadist activities. The defense, on the other hand, is trying, for one thing, to explain that, even if Padilla were a jihadi, "jihad" has multiple meanings, not all of them involving killing people. Regardless of whether you accept their definitions or not, they are not trying to "justify" anything. They are merely trying to point out that people automatically associate "jihad" with Al Qaeda, and that that is not necessarily a valid inference.

Just so you know, "jihad," in the sense of fighting for the Faith, can indeed be defensive. In other words, Muslims are allowed, if they are attacked for their faith, to fight back. The type of "jihad" practiced by Al Qaeda is a perversion of Islam, which specifically prohibits the killing of innocents, particularly women and children.

Please see the link below, which presents a fairly balanced, although brief, account of the issues in the trial.

And by the way, edward I, a defendant doesn't necessarily "walk" just because his attorney is determined to have made his case incompetently. You seem to imply that Padilla's lawyers had to come up with something, however ridiculous it might appear, or they could be deemed imcompetent and their client get off on appeal. That is simply not the way the system works. And at any rate, despite what you may see on TV, cases in which verdicts are overturned on appeal because of attorney incompetence are rare.

Answer 3

Think of the abstract.
If an attorney does not do his best to defend the accused, consider what will happen on appeal.
The attorney can be "accused" of not defending the accused person properly.
If that is determined to be true, the defendant walks.

The way our system operates.
I'm not a lawyer.

Answer 4

From what I understand there is NOTHING in the Muslim religion as a "jihad" against women and children!

Answer 5

What a crock of sh-t!