Key Findings

The two In Pursuit of Justice reports find:

• Prosecutors have invoked a host of specially tailored anti-terrorism laws and long-standing federal criminal statutes to obtain convictions in terrorism cases;
  
• Courts have consistently exercised jurisdiction over defendants brought before them, even those defendants apprehended by unconventional or forcible means;
  
• Existing criminal statutes and immigration laws provide an adequate basis to detain and monitor suspects in most cases;
  
• Applying statutes such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), courts have successfully balanced the need to protect national security information, including the sources and means of intelligence gathering, with  defendants' fair trial rights;
  
• Courts have devised creative approaches to balancing defendants' right to receive exculpatory information and other relevant discovery with the need to protect national security information;
  
• Miranda warnings are not required in battlefield and non-custodial interrogations or interrogations conducted purely for intelligence gathering purposes, and the Miranda issue does not have significant implications for criminal terrorism prosecutions;
  
• The Federal Rules of Evidence, including rules that govern the authentication of evidence collected abroad, provide a common-sense, flexible framework for guiding admissibility decisions;
  
• Terrorism trials have not presented novel speedy trial problems;
  
• The Federal Sentencing Guidelines and other applicable sentencing laws prescribe severe sentences for many terrorism offenses, and experience shows that terrorism defendants have generally been sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration; and
  
• Courts are generally able to assure the safety and security of trial participants and observers.

The reports recognize that the civilian criminal justice system is not, by itself, "the answer" to the problem of terrorism.  Intelligence gathering, diplomacy, interrupting the flow of terrorism financing, and military force are all part of the equation.  But they demonstrate that the criminal justice system is capable of bringing terrorists to justice through procedures that are fair, and seen to be fair, while protecting vital national security interests.