Thursday, October 18, 2007

Sept. 11 coerced confession violates the Constitution

In one of the most interesting cases decided by the Second Circuit in quite some time, the Court of Appeals ruled on October 18 that a man could sue a Federal agent for coercing a confession about his involvement in the September 11 attacks. Update: adding further intrigue to this case, the opinion in this case was withdrawn about two hours after the Court of Appeals posted it on its website. No explanation given. The link to the decision below is now dead.

The case is Higazy v. Millenium Hotel and Resorts. Higazy is an Egyptian citizen who was studying in New York City on the morning of September 11, 2001. The hotel he was staying in was evacuated right after the attacks, and a month later, hotel personnel found a suspicious airplane radio in Higazy's hotel room safe. The radio was an air-band transceiver capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground communication. This raised suspicions about Higazy and whether he was communicating with the hijackers and had something to do with the attacks. When FBI agents informally questioned Higazy, he had no idea what they were talking about and proclaimed his innocence. No matter. Higazy was held as a material witness and kept in custody.

When the FBI interrogated Higazy, defendant Templeton (an FBI agent) ridiculed him and called him a liar. According to the Court of Appeals,

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”

Higazy later said, “I knew that I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger.” He explained that “[t]he only thing that went through my ead was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family’s in danger. If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.”

So Higazy "confessed" to owning the radio to save his family from the brutal Egyptian government which he compared to Saddam Hussein's torure regime in Iraq. He therefore concocted an inconsistent story about how he obtained the radio. Higazy was next charged with engaging in criminal activity.

What happened next was even more bizarre. An airline pilot next returned to the hotel to reclaim his property. "After inspecting his items, the pilot informed the hotel staff that his transceiver was missing." The radio which authorites thought belonged to Higazy actually belonged to the pilot, who had had no interaction with Higazy. After being charged with the crime of the century, Higazy was innocent! He was freed and next brought a lawsuit against the interrogator, claiming constitutional violations relating to the coerced confession.

The Court of Appeals agreed that Higazy has a claim under the Constitution for the coerced confession and that Templeton is not entitled to qualified immunity. Reviewing the law of coerced confessions, the Second Circuit untangled Supreme Court precedent in finding that the confession could predicate a civil lawsuit because it was obtained in connection with a criminal case, in particular, a bail hearing on January 11, 2002. While government defendants are entitled to qualified immunity (and can't be sued) if the law was unclear at the time of the incident, the Court of Appeals reasoned, "On January 11, 2002, it was clearly established that the FBI could not coerce a confession and later use that confession in a criminal case, including in a proceeding before a judge after criminal charges had been filed, to impose the penalty of continued detention. The government argues that there was conflicting Supreme Court law as to whether a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was only a trial right, or extended more broadly. We disagree."

Wrapping up, the Second Circuit also rejected Templeton's other qualified immunity argument that it was objectively reasonable for him to act as he did under the circumstances. "When the facts are cast in the light most favorable to Higazy, an officer in Templeton’s shoes would have understood that the confession he allegedly coerced from Higazy would have been used in a criminal case against Higazy and that his actions therefore violated Higazy’s constitutional right to be free from compelled self-incrimination." While Judge Jacobs concurred in the result and took issue with the majority's analysis, he acknowledge the case raised "oddball facts."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

the opinion is back up again...

Anonymous said...

what I find interesting about this case is something that not a single person mentioned on your other web site.
I did not see any mention about whether the pilot who claimed to own the radio was a civilian or military pilot.
I can not imagine that a civilian pilot would need a radio to talk with other pilots. That is what the radio in the plane is for.
Every one knows that military pilots have radios that allow them to talk with other pilots so if they are shot down they can tell other pilots where they are so that they can be picked up.
So if this story is true it would be quite logical to figure that there was a US military pilot staying in a hotel on the 9th or 10 of September who had a military radio with him at the time.
Why? Also, how does a pilot forget to take something that important with him when he leaves? I have never been in the Air Force but I would be willing to bet that such radios are not the pilots personal possession.
A crime writer could really spin lots of stories from this event.
The pilot was using the radio for purposes of smuggling drugs or other contraband in to the USA.
The pilot was going to show the radio to an agent of a foreign government.
Yes he did come back for his radio. That would seem to be evidence that his possession of it would not raise any suspicions among his superiors. But if he was up to no good his superiors might have been in on it.
You would think that if there were anything unusual about the situation with the radio that the FBI would have been on top of it.
Is it possible to get anything over on them? I myself would like to know a lot more about the radio aspect of the story.
Curt Kastens

Anonymous said...

To follow up on this. It has been years since I posted those initial comments up above. OK it is certianly plausible that a pilot's radio can easily be detached from the control pannel of a private airplane. I am not a pilot so I can not confirm that.
But how often does it happen that a pilot forgets his radio in a hotel room and then goes back to get it weeks later. IIRC the owner of the radio went back weeks later to retive it. Now what are the chances that even in NYC if pilot left his radio in a room accidently that the next person to use the room would be a person from an Arab speaking country?? No wonder that an FBI agent was extremely suspicious of this person. And this unlikely "coincidence" just happened to be when the WTC was attacked.
I do not believe that the WTC towers fell because they were packed with explosives from the inside in advance of the attack. Nor do I believe that there was more than one shooter in Dealy Plaza on November 22nd 1963. In Dealy Plaza one shooter was enough to get the job done that high level officials in the CIA, FBI, and Military Intellegence wanted to get done. And in NYC two airplanes were enough to get the job done that high level officials in the CIA, and the FBI, and US Military Intellegence wanted to get done.
But this radio story serves as evidence of something fishing was going on on September 11th in the same way that the magic bullet serves as evidence that something fishy went down in Dallas on November 22nd 1963. Both pieces of evidence are clues left behind by someone who knew in advance that these events were going to happen. And if someone who had a desire to leave behind evidence to indicate that these events were known about in advance and not stopped there would clearly have been others in higher positions who would have known about the comming events and took no action to prevent them.
This comment is for entertianment purposed only. Resistance is futile. The beast, figuratively speaking, can not be dislodged. There are not enough qualifed people left to,nor enough time left to bring about the change that is neccessary to prevent

and even

and no amount of preperation or perspiration will save you.