Judge Young's poignant comment after sentencing Richard Reid "The Shoebomber"

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myrockfight

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Hey guys. I just got this today from a good friend concerning the comments Judge Young made after sentencing "The Shoebomber." It is a refreshing read. All hope is not lost!!


A good judge


How about this one.............

Remember the 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/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 stated "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:

January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. 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 consecutive with the other.
That's 80 years. On count 8 the Court sentences you to the
mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court
imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the
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 the $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.

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 all 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 it is the
officers of government who do it or your attorney who 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 know 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 where the TV crews were, and he said: "You're
no big deal."

You are 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 and 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 bare 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. 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?
We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Pass
this around. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to
say.
Powerful words that strike home.

God bless America.
 
hmm

Reid deserves to die. That much is true.

Yet I wonder what the difference is between a soldier and a "terrorist", especially when one considers fighter pilots soldiers. "Military" targets are often also civillian ones; where does the line between terrorist and soldier lie? I recall sarajevo, dresden, london (Luftwaffe).

To dismiss Reid as a terrorist, imho, encourages the highly ethno-centric American belief that the "war on terrorism" is a war between "us" and "them", and that "them" are "evil" and therefore suitable for extermination - without considering the reasons and motivations behind such combatants.

Few, even those who are certifiably crazy would willingly blow themselves up for no reason other than an odd sense of dislike for Americans.
 
Interesting point, silverlance.

All of our planes (and Britain's) are/were marked as US or British military. Our pilots wore uniforms then and now. Terrorists don't wear uniforms and they don't mark their vehicles.

The bombing in Sarajevo was done from 16,000 feet in order to minimize the possibility of our planes being shot down. I remember John McCain complaining about this, as precision bombing from such altitudes is highly unlikely, and would lead to unintended civilian deaths. A political decision.

The bombing of Dresden was one of the worst of the war, but a war with a country that had declared war on us and our allies.

We are not at war, declared or otherwise, with Syria or Iran or Jordan. We were at war with the Hussein regime, and we're now dealing with some of his former followers as well as foreign terrorists who do not conform to the rules of war.

To the best of my knowledge, we didn't have US soldiers in civilian clothing walk into downtown Berlin and blow themselves and 100 German citizens to bits.

We did have Japanese kamikazee pilots kill themselves as human bombs, but they did so in uniform and while flying planes marked with the Rising Sun.

Richard Reid wore no uniform, served no particular country's military, and attempted to kill people in an airliner that had no military value.
 
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio?
Didn't think so.

First of all, septuplicate thread, at least. We've been talking about this since February 2003.
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=107029
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=53504
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=52887
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=51130
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=13526
http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=8938


Secondly, bullhockey. It was all over the media.

As I pointed out here :
__________________
 
MattPayne - Do you have an axe to grind with this judge, the content of the email or what?

Like I said, "I just got this today from a good friend." It was a refreshing read. Personally, I hadn't heard of it or read it before I received it in my email. But congratulations on picking up on it for the umpteenth time.


Not only that, but every person I have showed it to, said they hadn't heard it either. One of them being my father, who watches the news almost every single day and reads the paper.

You make it sound like dissemination of information is a bad thing.

Perhaps you didn't see it in the liberal media because you don't watch it?

Obviously, I don't watch it quite as much as you do. But what would the point of that comment be? The biggest reason I don't watch news more than I do, is because I get sick of turning it on seven days in a row and the only thing that changes is the weather.

Have you heard about the girl who is missing in Aruba yet? :rolleyes:
 
Out of the loop

"Hey guys. I just got this today from a good friend concerning the comments Judge Young made after sentencing 'The Shoebomber.'"

I don't know where YOU'VE been, but the rest of us heard about it about 30 months ago. You know, when it actually HAPPENED. :rolleyes:

It was on all the major networks at the time, as well as the newspapers and forums. This is hardly breaking news..........
 
MattPayne - Do you have an axe to grind with this judge, the content of the email or what?

Actually, I liked the judge's speech.

My problem is the introductory comments about "you didn't hear about this on that liberal media" that always seem to accompany the story. I'll bash the mainstream media for bias when they display it, but it didn't happen this time.

Truth is more important than ideology.

That, and it's courteous to do a quick search before posting something that may have been posted once (or twice or six times) before.
 
Matts axe to grind is with all us American Jews, see its in his signature line which I find Highly offensive and Insulting:

Attention -- American Jews: "Never Again" will not be enforced by prayer, petitions or pacifism.

As an American Jew, my axe to grind is with me? :confused:

I'm just saying (and I have had that in my sig for most of two years) that anti-gun Jews who place responsibility for their safety in the hands of government or in the good nature of their enemies are seriously deluding themselves.

Seriously, please tell me what is insulting about that sig. But please do so in a PM so as not to derail this thread any further.
 
"My problem is the introductory comments about "you didn't hear about this on that liberal media" that always seem to accompany the story. I'll bash the mainstream media for bias when they display it, but it didn't happen this time."

Point well taken. This was something that was sent to me as a forward, from someone that is usually pretty well grounded. I pasted it into this post for the -content of the speech-, not for the whole media bashing agenda. For that in particular I apologize. I had glossed over the date of the sentencing and ensuing comments.

"Truth is more important than ideology."

I wholeheartedly agree.

"That, and it's courteous to do a quick search before posting something that may have been posted once (or twice or six times) before."

It is also courteous to ask instead of assuming. ;) I did a search on "shoebomber, richard, reid" and got three results . I thought to myself - "How is there only three results." So I searched for "richard, reid" and came up with this. Alas. There it is - approximately the 15th result. "Judge smacks shoe bomber."

While I understand your point, you also have to take into consideration that this is the internet. I have a large amount of respect for this particular site and take the Second Amendment cause seriously. But this isn't exactly a research paper or a thesis on which my or anyone else's PhD is riding. It is a discussion board on the internet. By and large most of what I have posted, if not all, will be forgotten weeks or mere days after I posted it. So I don't proofread and factcheck like I would if I were publishing a document.

However, the majority of the time, I make a significant effort to make sure what I am posting is factually and grammatically correct. Forgive me if I make an error here and there.
 
Internet tip #2541

If you receive a forwarded email & somewhere in the intro are the words "I just got this today from a good friend...." you need to do a bit of digging before posting anywhere (not a slam on you myrock just an observation as a mod on another board where the blissninnies post EVERYTHING that shows up in their In Box :banghead: ). Your search criteria (& intentions) was sound, it just didn't work here.

I wouldn't mind hearing Master Blaster's comments here as well as I've understood Matt's position for the two year's it's been here.
 
It is also courteous to ask instead of assuming. ;) I did a search on "shoebomber, richard, reid"....

While I understand your point, you also have to take into consideration that this is the internet.

The multiplicity was the least of my concerns, and I know that the search function is less than perfect. No hard feelings.

As a geek, though, I have a small tip. When you think a news story may be posted, pick the most unusual name or word in that article.

For this one, it was "Bousquet." Searching on that one got me all of the previous versions and just one false positive.
 
As a geek, though, I have a small tip. When you think a news story may be posted, pick the most unusual name or word in that article.

-Matt

As a non-geek....well not a geek of the internet anyway :D Thank you. It is a very good tip! Is that in some sticky on this board regarding searching for threads? It should be. It helps a lot!
 
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