US Republican Supports Cuban Five

An unlikely supporter of five Cubans locked up in US jails, a former Arizona attorney general and member of the Republican Party takes time out from million dollar corporate trials to explain why he thinks the trial of the Cuban Five in Miami was politically biased.

Born half a century ago, young Republican Grant Woods became a politician in 1989 when he announced his candidacy for Arizona Attorney General, but says the job meant more than just seeking votes.
His office embraced all of the 1990's and included massive suits against tobacco companies, challenging fellow party members over immigration issues and what he described in a March 2004 article in Arizona Attorney as “doing what he believes is correct and letting the chips fall as they may.”
Mr. Woods explains in his seminal article “Out with the Timid” that for politicians life can be deeper than it appears, but that sometimes it takes guts to do the right thing.
“Build relationships, motivate the troops and remember what’s important,” he advises after coming of age, and explains that he currently has a successful career as a trial lawyer since leaving public office in 1999.
Another busy man of law, the Speaker of Cuba´s National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, shared the story of five Cubans unfairly imprisoned in the US with Mr.
Woods while he visited here a couple of years ago.
Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Gerardo Hernandez and Fernando Gonzalez, universally known as the Cuban Five, were rounded up in 1998 in a federal sting operation after collecting data for Cuba on violent efforts organized by extreme groups of Cuban origin in Southern Florida. This included information sharing on terrorist activities that would have been dangerous for Cuban and US civilians.
The men were convicted for political reasons in Miami, a hotbed of anti-Cuban sentiment, where they were sentenced to multiple life sentences, solitary confinement and denied visiting rights.
The integrity of the FBI case agent who first nabbed them, conspicuous lack of key evidence, extreme sentences, impaired access to defense documents and what has essentially been a “criminalization of the political” have marked this mammoth case from the beginning.
The Five applied for moving the case away from a venue now recognized as entirely unsuitable and annulment of the trial, which has already been recommended by three members of the Federal Appeals Court. What’s more, a working group on arbitrary detention set up by the UN Human Rights Commission declared the incarceration arbitrary and illegal.

Unfair Trial in Miami

Grant Woods, a former public defender, judge pro tempore and Attorney General, says he has researched this unique sequence of events, and “there is no question in my mind that these Five did not receive a fair trial because the case was tried in Miami.”
After repeated telephone calls and emails, Mr. Woods keys in to Havana from his handheld computer, explaining how most days he is either in court or preparing cases for trial.
“It is my hope that the federal judges in Atlanta will overturn these convictions,” he explained.
It is his understanding that they were monitoring “activities of radicals in Miami who had previously been involved in acts of violence against Cuba and Cubans.”
Mr. Woods implies it may not be easy to find an impartial jury to accept that, but very clearly says “they had every right to present it to one that came into the case with no preconceived opinions or prejudices. In fact, Miami was probably the worst place in the world to present this defense.”

American Justice

“One of the basic tenets of our American system of justice is that you can walk into the courtroom and have your case heard impartially on the merits of your argument, regardless of your ethnicity, national origin, or political views,” explains Mr. Woods.
He says the original trial venue could have easily been changed to a neighboring county whose “views toward Cuba and these Five were more in line with the rest of the country.”
“It cannot matter whether defendants are from a country with which the United States has an ongoing dispute or whether or not we approve of the political regime in the country of origin for defendants,” he says, reminding that “what matters are the facts of the case. I hope our appellate court in Atlanta will see this and let these men be judged fairly once and for all.”

On Liberty and Safety

Asked if he has any favorite quotes that could apply to this case, Grant Woods replies that Ben Franklin once said: "Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
These five men were sentenced in December 2001, just two months after the world was changed forever by the world trade center attack, which was repudiated by the five Cubans the same day it happened.
Nevertheless, in that month of fear and confusion these men were laden with a total of three life sentences, one of them double, and more than 60 years behind bars.
“It is tempting,” he says, “to compromise in these times when people are more fearful for their safety.
But it is exactly in these times that we must remain true to the fundamental tenets of our Constitution or else we risk going down a slippery slope from which there may be no going back.”
Regarding how fear may have affected this trial, he says “Compromise and rationalization in this case may have made a good political result for some in Florida, but I believe it reflected quite poorly on our system of justice.” Politics Have No Place in the Courtroom
“This case has thus far been all about politics and not about the law,” elaborates Grant Woods. “Each defendant, regardless of his personal politics, deserves the guarantees of a fair trial that our Constitution provides.”
“As Attorney General, I told my prosecutors that I wanted to win cases based on their merit, not because I had used the rules or the system to stack the deck against defendants. That is easily done and often tempting to achieve a particular result. But it"s not right,” he says.
This week the defense will argue before the full 12 judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the 93-page decision by the three member panel from that court was correct in its analysis of Miami as a “perfect storm of prejudice,” and that the men should have been tried elsewhere.
In a telephone conversation last December from New York to his Florida office, defense chief Richard Klugh explained to Prensa Latina exactly why he believes his clients should be set free.
“They’ve all served extremely long sentences,” says the lawyer, “and I don’t even think the government thinks they should be tried again. They clearly did not act in a criminal way, and when someone has suffered as much as they have, it’s best to just release them.”
Grant Woods seems to listen to his own sage advice on remembering what’s important regardless of its political value, and says “Changing the venue to assure a fair trial for these men was the right thing to do and I believed it was essential under our Constitution.”
“The system is great, but it is not perfect. That's why we have appellate courts, and I am hopeful that they will set a higher standard and correct this wrong.”

This version was taken from http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/3365/1/165/