question re: administering a poison & jail time for doing so

In writing, you can create any kind of outcome you want. Regardless of real life justice and miscarriage of justice anything can conceivably happen.

Particularly in America, we are not carefully watched, for most things. Almost any decision can be ignored until it surfaces violently again.

Change of identiy used to be fairly easy and I suppose that if you know the right people it still is. Find somebody who died young and assume his/her identity. Genealogy researchers used to be able to get copies of birth certificates easily. With one of those in hand it shouldn't be hard to get believable identity, though a passport might be out of reach.

What I am saying is ANYTHING is possible. Don't be restrained by legal limits. The type of character described in your post wouldn't be.

rosehips said:

Hi all,
I have a secondary character who is a botanist and minor terrorist.

Click to expand...

Terrorism is a separate crime from attempted murder, and there's also a mail crime here. Three charges, and all seriously piss off US Attorneys (this would be prosecuted by the Feds, not a state).

Maryn said:

The sentence for attempted murder can be quite stiff. 15- or 25-to-life is not unreasonable, although a lawyer may be able to plead it down if the accused can offer any justification or suggestion of temporary insanity.

Click to expand...

For attempted murder, these numbers are reasonable. Add in the terrorism and add another 10 - 30 years on top of the 15 - 25 range. And life on the top end is very likely. This is assuming a crime after 9/11/01. Entirely different scenario applies if prior to that date.

In other words, best case scenario if tried and convinced in 2005, he wouldn't be released until 2030, and that's optimistic. To make your story work, I think you're probably going to have to tank the prosecutor and let your character walk.

When he gets released, if he ever does, he'd be on parole. And because he's a terrorist, if he were to disappear while on parole, a major alert would go out, instead of the normal minor alerts when parolees disappear.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Iron Mike might be able to give you a better answer as to what gets you on the terror watch list.

From what I've seen of the court cases, it seems to be rather minimal and confusing criteria. In some cases, it seems to be as little as what country you're from. In other cases, it seems to be very substantial, leading to prosecution for terrorist acts that were, at some level, being planned. And much of this is addressed in secret court hearings that are sealed from the public.

The result is a lot of confusion on the part of the defense bar as to how to defend these cases (quite a few that arise prior to an actual criminal case -- for instance, being denied boarding on an airline has triggered some of these cases).

In addition, there seems to be different levels of monitoring of people who are on the watch list. There are reports of it impacting jobs, and definitely effects security clearances. In some cases, either obvious contact is made (an FBI agent or Homeland Security agent arrives to interview you) or undercover contact is made. Wiretapping and email monitoring is definitely done. Sudden, unexplained disappearances have triggered BOLOs.

Some of these have involved innocent people, some have involved guilty people, and some have involved political beliefs that do not arise to any level of criminal activity. Despite rumors to the contrary, you can believe all you want that bin Laden was justified in attacking the WTC. What you can't do is support or assist terrorist activities. That's a hard line sometimes to see and understand.

I'd put your guy as a professor for a university, doing research. University gets a DOD contract that requires a security screening. Professor is denied clearance, and the university terminates the professor as a result. Professor's pissed, and his moderate opinions are strengthened as a result of the government's killing of his job. Don't try to explain it but let it be mysterious and unclear. (The government does not have to explain why someone is denied a security clearance.)

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

The criteria for inclusion in a watchlist are many, constantly evolving, and most importantly - pretty much classified. Feel free to speculate about the obvious (criminal records, dubious associations with known/suspected persons and/or groups, published works/comments that raise suspicion, etc...).

I recommend you take Jim's academia suggestion (re: failure to pass a background check for a temporary clearance to work on a govt contract); keep the reason for the failure vague and mysterious if it fits with your story. In reality, a subject isn't always told why he/she flunked the background check, of course sometimes they know, and don't need to be told...

One other thing to remember? You'll have a lot of times where, if the perpetrator is caught dead to rights and knows it, they'll plea bargain down to a lower charge and get others dropped so that court is over and done with.
For example, since your attempted murder failed, he may actually plead it down to aggravated assault (it has actually happened before), do one or two years in prison, and then go on parole, with other charges dropped.

benluby said:

One other thing to remember? You'll have a lot of times where, if the perpetrator is caught dead to rights and knows it, they'll plea bargain down to a lower charge and get others dropped so that court is over and done with.
For example, since your attempted murder failed, he may actually plead it down to aggravated assault (it has actually happened before), do one or two years in prison, and then go on parole, with other charges dropped.

Click to expand...

Not likely in a possible terrorist mail poisoning. This is a big time crime. US Attorney is going to want a trial (and publicity). Once you add the word "terror" to a crime in the present environment, defense attorneys start thinking in terms of decades.

Crimes and sentencing go through periods of popularity and unpopularity. For instance, think someone convicted of being a gun to a school would receive the same sentence today that he would have a year ago?

Possessing child porn a couple of decades ago used to be no worse then regular porn and minimal sentences. Now it's hot and sentencing is in decades. Give it a couple of decades and it might go back to what it was. The crime and its effects on people hasn't changed, but the public's perception has.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe