A Virginia man convinced a federal appeals court to vacate his conviction for urging others to help the Taliban and fight the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, because his speech is protected under the First Amendment.
A lower court must acquit Ali Al-Timimi because a jury convicted him based entirely on words that didn’t urge a concrete criminal plan or provide operational assistance for a crime, Judge James Andrew Wynn of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said in a Friday ruling.
The First Amendment “forbids criminal punishment for protected advocacy—however odious the ...