John G. Douglass

Raiding Islam: Searches that Target Religious Institutions

On the morning of March 20, 2002, while television cameras recorded the events for the evening news, dozens of federal agents entered and searched the offices of several Islamic educational and religious organizations in Northern Virginia. The agents were searching, it appears, for evidence that those organizations contributed money to international groups known to have sponsored terrorist acts. By most public accounts, the targeted institutions were regarded as moderate and progressive voices in American Islam. For that reason, the searches sent shock waves through the American Muslim community. Muslims who had supported the Administration’s domestic war on terrorism began to wonder out loud: If religious institutions like these are suspect in the eyes of the government, then what Islamic organization is not? Is this a war on terrorism, or a war on Islam? In response to protests from a variety of American Muslim organizations, the government was quick to point out that the searches were authorized by warrants issued by a federal magistrate. But as months have passed with little indication that the searches produced

Confronting the Reluctant Accomplice

The Supreme Court treats the Confrontation Clause as a rule of evidence that excludes unreliable hearsay. But where the hearsay declarant is an accomplice who refuses to testify at defendants trial, the Courts approach leads prosecutors and defendants to ignore real opportunities for confrontation , while they debate the reliability of hearsay. And even where the Courts doctrine excludes hearsay, it leads prosecutors to purchase the accomplices testimony through a process that raises equally serious questions of reliability. Thus, the Courts approach promotes neither reliability nor confrontation. This Article advocates an approach that applies the Confrontation Clause to hearsay declarants in much the same way it applies to testifying witnesses. Rather than exclude unreliable hearsay, the Clause guarantees fair adversarial testing of hearsay. Prosecutors cannot introduce accomplice hearsay without using available means to bring about real confrontation. Defendants cannot rely on confrontation rights that they are not willing to exercise. And courts must take a harder look when accomplices assert a blanket right not to testify. Rather than j1itting hearsay against confrontation, this approach embraces solutions which allow both hearsay and confrontation. their helpful comments, and to Barbara Armacost and our other generous hosts at the University of Virginia Conference on the Constitution and Criminal Justice for the opportunity to present a draft of this Article. Also, thanks go to my colleague, Ron Bacigal, for his insights upon reading my drafl~ and for answering my many questions along the way.