I am Brian Terrell, representing Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah. As I review the list of my purported crimes in this report prepared by the Pretrial Services Agency, I wish that I could stand on my record, as did Susan Crane when she was sentenced here just moments ago. Unfortunately, though, this document reflects little that is recognizable. Nine times beginning back in 1977, says the Pretrial Service Agency, I was arrested in Washington DC.

With the best of my recollection, all but two of these arrests actually occurred in jurisdictions ranging from Virginia to Illinois, to Nebraska and my home, Iowa. The two DC arrests listed that might have actually happened here were post and forfeit arrests at the White House by the U.S. Park Service Police. “PSA was unable to obtain any arrest information in DC Superior Court records” may be the only accuracy in this report. These are quibbles and the fact is that I have been arrested and convicted many times in many places over more than 30 years. Each time I have been arrested it was for nonviolent actions, most of these times, as in the present case, I was arrested while participating in a “peaceable assembly for redress of grievances,” activities supposedly protected by the US Constitution.

Many times my rights were violated as they have been today, though not as egregiously as those of Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah and the other Guantanamo detainees.

I, too, while waiting in the Supreme Court on January 11 watched the video made to describe the Court to visitors that others have mentioned. This video was clearly made to be understandable to children on grade school field trips and intended to be promotional, celebratory, even, of the Court and its history.

I was impressed, then, that it spoke honestly of the 1857 Dred Scott decision which determined that human beings of African descent were not persons under the law and had no standing in to bring cases before the courts. The court’s regrettable decision, the video says, was a blot on our country, damaging the reputation of the Supreme Court for generations, precipitating a horrific civil war.

Imagine, your honor, if in 1857 some citizens had held a sign or devise and assembled, paraded, made a harangue disrupting the good order of the Court by insisting that slavery is a crime and that all human beings possess the same rights and dignities as any others. Would we remember these citizens now as criminals or would we look back and say these were standing up for the dignity of the courts, acting in the interest and in the defense of our nation?

The cases regarding the prisoners of Guantanamo today raise the same issues raised by the Dred Scott case in 1857: Are these detainees human beings in the eyes of the law? Do they have rights? The whole world awaits- will the Supreme Court of the United States repeat its catastrophic error?

Your Honor, I appreciate your attention throughout these proceedings to the fact that many of us live far from Washington, DC. As the defendant in this case that lives the farthest away from this city, I am especially grateful that you did not require attendance to pretrial hearings, as you might have. I ask you to accommodate me one more time.

You have just sentence Christine Gaunt and Kirk Brown to ten days in jail. Chris and Kirk and I travelled here together from Iowa and plan on returning there together.

Like them, I will not accept any terms of probation. Please sentence me to the same term as you did them and in ten days we will return home together. Thank you.