The Trials of Rasmea Odeah, Part Four — Prosecution and Defense
This is my fourth post, of five, on The Trials of Rasmea Odeh.
Rasmea Odeh’s trial in the Eastern District of Michigan began on November 5, 2014. The presiding judge was Gershwin Drain, an African American appointed by President Obama, who had tried over 150 cases to verdict during his earlier career as a federal public defender. The defense had been optimistic when Judge Drain replaced Judge Paul Borman, who had recused himself when he discovered that his family held stock in Supersol’s parent company. They were soon disappointed when Judge Drain held that Odeh could not testify about her torture by Israeli interrogators. The only issue in the case was Odeh’s concealment of her conviction and imprisonment, he ruled, not the legitimacy of the Israeli criminal process. Deutsch lamented on Chicago Public Radio that the court had “cut the heart out of our defense.”
The prosecution case was uncomplicated, based almost entirely on digitally presented documents. The prosecution introduced Odeh’s visa and naturalization applications, highlighting the false answers to the questions about criminal convictions and imprisonment. The naturalization officer who conduct
Article from Reason.com
