Right On The Right

My Reaction: This just proves that the United States is doing a good job in collecting evidence and throwing the right people behind bars. My question is, what if the obviously guilty Padilla walked because of a sympathetic or unconvinced jury member? I'll stick with the satisfaction of an enemy combatant designation.

Breaking Update: Jose Padilla has been found GUILTY on all charges, facing a potential life sentence. Both of his co-defendants have also been found GUILTY.

Stop the ACLU is reporting that a verdict in the Jose Padilla case is due around 2 PM today:

A verdict was reached Thursday in the trial of Jose Padilla and two co-defendants charged with supporting al-Qaida and other violent Islamic extremist groups overseas.

The jury verdict was scheduled to be read at 2 p.m. EDT before U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke in Miami’s downtown federal courthouse, according to an announcement from her chambers. The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for about a day and a half following a three-month trial.

Deliberations went incredibly quickly, suggesting they either overwhelmingly thought he was guilty or overwhelmingly pulled a "Henry Fonda" from 12 Angry Men and decided that there's not enough evidence to convict. A lot of the evidence is circumstantial, but apparently he filled out some sort of application which is solid evidence.

Allahpundit doesn't think they'll convict, but judging from the information Malkin has put out about that application, I'd say they're going to convict. We'll find out if I'm wrong soon enough.

Captain Ed is already considering the ramifications of a failure to convict:

This will present a test of the administration’s efforts to use the court system to prosecute home-grown terrorists. If the Department of Justice loses this case, recriminations will fly over their handling of Padilla and the evidence they had to toss from their initial handling of Padilla’s incarceration. If Padilla gets convicted, it may take a lot of steam out of the protests over this case and others like it — although it could also turn into an argument for handling terrorism as a crime rather than an act of war.

Stay tuned. I'll be bringing you guys an update on whether or not he's convicted as soon as I get the news.