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Few Have Sympathy for Lindh
Monday, January 28, 2002
(11:43 PM ET)
By Toni Locy
USA Today

Asked for comment, Lindh's defense lawyer, James Brosnahan, referred on Monday to a previous statement that Lindh is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

WASHINGTON
Most Americans say captured Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh should have been charged with treason, and young people and women are particularly unmoved by the defense his parents and lawyer launched last week, a USA TODAY/CNN/ Gallup Poll finds.

In the poll, 60% of respondents disagree with the Justice Department's decision not to charge Lindh with treason, a crime that carries the death penalty. Only 33% agree with charging him with counts that could send him to prison for life if convicted.

Lindh, 20, is a Northern Californian who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was captured in November and is charged with conspiring to kill Americans, providing material support to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, and engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban.

The poll finds that 70% of 18- to 29-year-olds say Lindh should have been charged with treason, compared with 52% of those over age 50. The poll also indicates that women are less likely than men to support not charging him with treason: 28% of women agree with the prosecutors' decision, compared with 38% of men.

Legal analysts say the results provide a glimpse of the peril Lindh could face if he opts to go to trial before a jury of his peers.
(More: USA Today News Source)
2002 © USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc.

I wonder if he could find 12 peers, let alone 12 individual voters who would even claim to be his peers...

Dan