Lodi Islamic Terror Trial Begins

(Sacramento, California) Regular readers are likely aware of the ongoing story of the Lodi terror probe which resulted in the arrests of Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat. As a reminder, Hamid and Umer are accused of lying to federal agents regarding Hamid's attendance at a Pakistani terrorist training camp. Hamid is also accused of the more serious charge of planning jihadist strikes against the U.S.


Hamid Hayat & Umer Hayat
Despite vigorous efforts on the part of defense lawyers to have Hamid and Umer released on bail, the court has consistently deemed them to be flight risks. Both have been in the Sacramento County Jail since June of 2005. Indictments followed.

Today, the trial of Hamid and Umer Hayat begins. Notably, procedures for their trial are to be somewhat irregular.

From SacBee.com:

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. has ordered the pair tried before two juries at the same time in the same courtroom to avoid prejudice to either defendant from incriminating evidence that applies to only one of them. When such evidence is presented to one jury, the other jury will be out of the courtroom.

Twelve jurors and four alternates will be chosen for each defendant.

Okay, so there's going to be two juries, two defense teams, two prosecution teams, two docket numbers, two sets of evidence, two sets of testimony, and one judge. Sounds entertaining, eh? Sort of like The Perry Mason and Jerry Springer Variety Show.

Both U.S. citizens, the Hayats have pleaded not guilty to all charges. If convicted, Hamid faces a possible 23 years in prison, Umer faces an eight-year term.


[Update]

Rusty Shackleford notes that the extent of the information reported by the SacBee indicates that sealed court documents have been compromised. As a consequence, the FBI is investigating how the information was obtained. More details are at The Jawa Report.

It will be interesting to see how forthcoming the newspaper is about its sources. My guess would be not much.