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In May 2019, the early release of convicted terrorist John Walker Lindh prompted concerns about whether the man known as the American Taliban had abandoned his extremist beliefs and support of violent Islamic terrorist groups, as the Associated Press< reported: In the aftermath of Lindh's release, a widely shared meme highlighted concerns about whether his punishment had been inadequate, especially when compared to the relatively severe sentences imposed for what would widely be regarded as lesser crimes. The meme, posted by the left-leaning Other 98% page on 23 May, also suggested that Lindh's case was part of a pattern of racial disparities and injustice in sentencing — a common theme of viral memes, some of which we have examined in the past. The meme contained photographs of Lindh, who is white, and a Michigan man Michael Alonzo Thompson, who is black, along with the following text: The meme was even more widely promulgated when the Friends of Farrakhan page shared it on Facebook on 28 May. The question of whether, and to what extent, race played a role in the sentencing decisions made in the cases of Lindh and Thompson is not one this article will address, in part precisely because the two men were convicted of such radically different crimes. Rather, what follows is our breakdown of the core and ancillary factual claims contained in the meme. John Walker Lindh U.S. forces captured Lindh in Afghanistan on 25 November 2001, after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The American, then aged 20, was captured and detained alongside Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Hours later, those fighters conducted a coordinated and violent prison uprising during which Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Johnny Micheal Mike Spann was shot dead, and dozens of Afghans were killed. Lindh was brought back to the United States and charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, initially on 10 counts including conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to foreign terrorist groups, contributing services to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, using and carrying firearms during acts of violence, and using explosives in the commission of a felony. If he had been convicted on all those counts, Lindh would have been given a life sentence, but concerns over the treatment he received from U.S. forces during his transit from Afghanistan to the United States prompted prosecutors and Lindh's attorneys to enter into a plea agreement in July 2002. In 2004, the Los Angeles Times cited leaked documents and court filings containing claims that then-Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld's staff had instructed Lindh's American interrogators to take the gloves off, as well as allegations that the interrogators had stripped Lindh of his clothes, starved him, and threatened to kill him. The Department of Defense has denied claims that Lindh was mistreated. Under the terms of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped eight of the charges against Lindh, and he pleaded guilty to one count of supplying services to the Taliban and one count of using explosives in the commission of a felony. Lindh was also required to put to rest his claims of mistreatment by the United States military. In October 2002, Judge T. S. Ellis honored the terms of the plea agreement and gave Lindh a 20-year prison sentence, to be followed by three years of supervised release. On 23 May 2019, Lindh was released from the federal correctional institution at Terre Haute, Indiana, three years before his scheduled release date, reportedly on the grounds of good behavior. However, several observers, including the family of CIA agent Mike Spann, objected to Lindh's early release, citing recent reports that suggested the 38-year-old had not abandoned his support for violent Islamic extremism. In June 2017, Foreign Policy magazine reported that a leaked National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) memo had warned: As of May 2016, John Walker Lindh (USPER) — who is scheduled to be released in May 2019 after being convicted of supporting the Taliban — continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts. In March 2016, the NCTC memo claimed, citing FBI intelligence reports, that Lindh told a television news producer that he would continue to spread violent extremist Islam upon his release. In the lead-up to Lindh's release in May 2019, Alison Spann — a television reporter for WLOX in Mississippi and the daughter of agent Spann — published an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, appealing to him to intervene against Lindh's early release: My dad wasn't the only American in that prison that day — there was another American who had turned against his own people to support radical extremists in their terror pursuits. An American who didn't warn his fellow countryman of the uprising that was to come. An American who sat back while his fellow countryman was brutally murdered. An American who said nothing allowing a father of three, a husband, son, brother and friend to be killed at the hands of his terrorist friends. An American named John Walker Lindh ... I am asking you to stop the early release of John Walker Lindh. The American Al Qaeda fighter should be made to serve his full sentence — one that pales in comparison to the one that so many families have had to pay in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. The factual claims made about Lindh's case in the Other 98% meme were highly accurate. Lindh is indeed a white American known as the American Taliban, who fought with the Taliban and was convicted of terrorist offenses. He was indeed released from prison in May 2019 after serving 17 years in prison for his crimes, although the meme did not note that his original sentence was 20 years. The only substantive point of dispute is the claim that he was part of the Qala-i-Jangi uprising. Lindh was undoubtedly present at the prison camp for the revolt and was one of the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters brought there after being captured. However, in their initial indictment against Lindh, prosecutors did not specifically accuse him of having taken up arms in the uprising, but with a related offense instead: Notably, the indictment added that Lindh's convalescence in the basement of the compound amounted to a violation of U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2332 (b)(2), meaning that he had been a co-conspirator after the fact in an endeavor that killed a U.S. national, namely C.I.A. agent Mike Spann. However, that particular charge was later dropped as part of the plea agreement, and so it cannot unambiguously be stated that Lindh was part of the uprising that killed Spann as opposed to being present (and recovering from a gunshot wound) for its duration. Michael Alonzo Thompson In May 1996, 45-year-old Michael Alonzo Meeko Thompson was convicted and sentenced at Genesee District Court in Michigan on five charges: possession with intent to deliver marijuana; conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver marijuana; delivery of marijuana; possession of a weapon by a convicted felon; and possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony. Right away, it should be noted that the Other 98% meme was misleading in their description of Thompson's crimes, claiming that he sold 3 lbs of weed to a police informant. That drug offense wasn't the basis of the very lengthy sentence Thompson received; rather, he was sentenced to between 40 and 60 years in prison based on a weapons conviction, which was exacerbated by the fact that Thompson was already a thrice-convicted felon — two important and relevant facts the meme omitted. For the three drug offenses, the statutory maximum penalty was four years in prison and a fine of up to $2,000. For possession of a firearm in the act of a felony, the maximum sentence was two years. For possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the maximum penalty was five years in prison.; However, Thompson was charged as a fourth habitual offender under Michigan law, because by that time he already had three previous felony convictions for drug-related offenses dating back to the 1980s on his record, including conspiracy to bring contraband into prison. As a result of the prosecutors' application of the habitual offender law, four of the sentences imposed on Thompson were significantly lengthened in accordance with Michigan law. For the three drugs offenses, Thompson received a 15-year prison sentence, which was completed in 2011. For possession of a firearm in the act of a felony, he received the regular two-year sentence. However, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, Thompson received a sentence of between 40 and 60 years in prison. Thompson appealed his convictions, but in December 1998 the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld them. In their ruling, the court outlined the events of 19 December 1994 and Thompson's role in them: Along with the use of habitual offender sentencing guidelines, perhaps the most controversial aspect of Thompson's case was that he was convicted of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and possession of a weapon in the commission of a felony (the drug deal), despite the fact that he did not have a weapon on his person when the drugs and money actually changed hands. The Court of Appeals addressed this issue in their ruling, explaining the somewhat complicated reasoning behind the principle of constructive possession and citing a 1995 Court of Appeals decision in People vs Williams: The court decided that because Thompson had access to the guns in his house as the informant handed him $4,200 there, and he received money on the understanding that drugs would be provided in exchange for it (part of the delivery of marijuana offense), Thompson therefore had constructive possession of those firearms while he was, in effect, committing a felony: One who possesses a firearm while collecting payment for a controlled substance that will soon be delivered in exchange for that payment can be convicted of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony even though the controlled substance and the firearm are never actually possessed at the same time. Thompson also appealed his 40-60 year prison sentence, claiming that it was so disproportionate that it amounted to a violation of the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Court of Appeals members described the sentence as quite severe but did not find that the District Court had abused the discretion given to it by the sentencing guidelines contained in Michigan's habitual offender statute: The remaining factual claims in the Other 98% meme were accurate, though not perfectly so. In response to our inquiries, the Michigan Department of Corrections told us that since 1994, Thompson's prison record showed just two instances of minor misconduct, the most recent of which occurred in 2006 and was an out of place incident, meaning Thompson was briefly in a part of the prison where he should not have been. Although his behavioral record has not quite been spotless, as the meme claimed, it appears to have been more than satisfactory. Thompson was arrested in December 1994 and has been in prison for the past 24 years and five months, meaning the Other 98 meme was almost fully accurate in stating that Thompson had been in a Michigan prison for 25 years. Finally, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records, Thompson cannot undergo a parole hearing until April 2038, which was in 19 years' time when the Other 98 meme was published -- contrary to the claim that Thompson won't be eligible for parole for 15 more years. In fact, he will have to wait even longer than 15 years, so the meme actually slightly understated the case. As of May 2019, Thompson was 68 years old; at the latest, he might not be released until February 2047, by which time he would be 95 years old.
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