The judge in the Richard Reid shoe-bombing case threw out one of the nine charges. The charge thrown out was “attempting to wreck a mass transportation vehicle”. The judge said that an airplane does not meet the Congressional definition of “vehicle”. OK, but the judge does not meet my definition of “intelligent”, either. What is an airplane if not a “mass transportation vehicle”?
Got this from the Fox News scroll a few minutes ago.
Update: Apparently Congress made another mistake in the USA Patriot legislation. This is from the Fox News story online:
The charge attempting to wreck a mass transportation vehicle was filed under the USA Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. District Judge William Young said that although an airplane was engaged in mass transportation it is not a vehicle as defined by the new law.
I still don’t see how a judge can’t interpret the law to include an airplane as a “mass transportation vehicle”. This guy must be a Clinton appointee.