Opinion ID: 2427524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Sabir's Vagueness Challenge to the Statutory Proscriptions Fails

Text: Sabir contends that the statutory terms at issuetraining, personnel, and expert assistance and adviceare inherently too vague to provide the notice and direction required by due process. Such a general complaint is now foreclosed by Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project . The Supreme Court there observed that these terms did not require the sort of untethered, subjective judgments that had compelled it to strike down statutes tying criminal culpability to vague concepts such as annoying or indecent conduct. 130 S.Ct. at 2720. The Court identified further protection against vagueness in Congress's addition of narrowing definitions for these terms, which increased the[ir] clarity, as well as in the knowledge element required for a § 2339B conviction. Id. Sabir's more specific challenges to the application of these terms to the particular facts of his case are equally meritless. To the extent Sabir was convicted of conspiring with Shah to provide training  i.e., instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge, 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(2)to a known terrorist organization, a person of ordinary intelligence, Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. at 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, would require nothing more than common understanding, Jordan v. De George, 341 U.S. at 232, 71 S.Ct. 703, to recognize that this prohibition plainly encompassed martial arts training and instruction for jihadists serving al Qaeda, Indictment ¶¶ 1-2. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project , the Supreme Court held that [a] person of ordinary intelligence would understand that instruction on resolving disputes through international law falls within the statute's definition of `training' because it imparts a `specific skill,' not `general knowledge.' 130 S.Ct. at 2720. That conclusion is even more apparent here, where the trial evidence showed that the martial arts training Shah proposed to provide was specific and deadly and hardly a matter of general knowledge. See, e.g., GX 814T at 3-4 (recording Shah's explanation of how to kill a man by ripping out his throat). Moreover, al Qaeda's history for using murderous terrorism in an attempt to intimidate civilian populations and governments, see 18 U.S.C. § 2331 (defining terrorism)particularly American civilians and the United States governmentis so well known that no reasonable person could doubt that training al Qaeda members in martial arts is precisely the sort of material support proscribed by § 2339B, see Arriaga v. Mukasey, 521 F.3d at 224; United States v. Rybicki, 354 F.3d at 129. We likewise reject Sabir's vagueness challenge to the term personnel as applied to his case. The provision of personnel is prohibited by § 2339B only when an individual knowingly provides, attempts to provide, or conspires to provide a foreign terrorist organization with one or more individuals, including himself, to work under that terrorist organization's direction or control or to organize, manage, supervise, or otherwise direct [its] operation. 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(h). Quite apart from Shah's offer to act as a martial arts trainer for al Qaeda in that organization's pursuit of jihad, Sabir's offer to serve as an on-call doctor for the organization, standing ready to treat wounded mujahideen in Saudi Arabia, falls squarely within the core of this prohibition, defeating any suggestion either that he lacked notice that his conduct was unlawful or that the statute was enforced arbitrarily with respect to him. See Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d at 494; United States v. Rybicki, 354 F.3d at 129. In an effort to avoid this conclusion, Sabir argues that his offer of life-saving medical treatment was simply consistent with his ethical obligations as a physician and not reflective of any provision of support for a terrorist organization. The record does not support this characterization. Sabir was not prosecuted for performing routine duties as a hospital emergency room physician, treating admitted persons who coincidentally happened to be al Qaeda members. Sabir was prosecuted for offering to work for al Qaeda as its on-call doctor, available to treat wounded mujahideen who could not be brought to a hospital precisely because they would likely have been arrested for terrorist activities. See GX 906T at 49, 69. In offering this support for al Qaeda, Sabir did not simply honor his Hippocratic oath. He swore a further oath of allegiance to al Qaeda, making clear that his treatment of wounded mujahideen would be provided not as an independent physician but as one of the soldiers of Islam, duty bound to obey al Qaeda's leaders, including Osama bin Laden, and to protect his fellow brothers on the path of Jihad  and on the path of al Qaeda. Id. at 114-16. No reasonable person with a common understanding of al Qaeda's murderous objectives could doubt that such material support fell squarely within the prohibitions of § 2339B. See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2721 (holding that statute limiting personnel to persons working under terrorist organization's direction or control, rather than independently, adequately avoided vagueness). Nor is the statute's prohibition on the provision of expert assistance and advice to terrorist organizations unconstitutionally vague as applied to Sabir. As the district court correctly observed, the medical expertise of a licensed physician plainly constitutes scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge under 18 U.S.C. § 2339A. [11] See United States v. Shah, 474 F.Supp.2d at 497 n. 5. Indeed, such expertise requires more specialized knowledge than the instruction in relief application that the Supreme Court held comfortably to fall within the scope of expert advice or assistance in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S.Ct. at 2720. Any person of ordinary intelligence would readily recognize that such expert assistance (well outside the scope of one's regular hospital duties), with the stated object of permitting al Qaeda fighters to advance on the path of Jihad  is exactly the sort of material support proscribed by § 2339B. See Arriaga v. Mukasey, 521 F.3d at 224; United States v. Rybicki, 354 F.3d at 129; cf. Watson v. Geren, 569 F.3d 115, 119, 134 (2d Cir.2009) (upholding conscientious objector claim of doctor who refused to serve in United States Army based on belief that treating wounded soldiers would be functional equivalent of weaponizing human beings). Further, because Sabir's proffered support, whether viewed as training, personnel, or expert assistance, fell so squarely within the core of § 2339B's prohibition, the application of that law to his conduct cannot have been the product of arbitrary law enforcement. See Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d at 494.