Spies Won't Get New Trial

In what had to be one of the easiest decisions the 11th Court of Appeals has ever made, they ruled that the five Cuban spies convicted in 2001 of conspiring to enter U.S. military bases will not get a retrial. Last year, a 3-judge panel decided that there was enough evidence of community bias (read: Cuban-Americans being bullies) to pressure the jury to rule against the spies.

Here's a key paragraph from the ruling opinion:

Miami-Dade County is a widely diverse, multi-racial community of more than two million people. Nothing in the trial record suggests that twelve fair and impartial jurors could not be assembled by the trial judge to try the defendants impartially and fairly. The broad discretion the law reposes in the trial judge to make the complex calibrations necessary to determine whether an impartial jury can be drawn from a cross-section of the community to ensure a fair trial was not abused in this case. Although it is conceivable that, under a certain set of facts, a court might have to change venue to ensure a fair trial, the threshold for such a change is rightfully a high one. The defendants have not satisfied it.

By the way, none of the 12 jurors were Cuban-Americans.

Read more about this here.