Lyglenson Lemorin speaks...

...from his immigration prison in Georgia. This is the acquitted defendant from the Liberty City 7 case who remains detained on the same allegations for which he was acquitted. Apparently, the immigration judge told him that there is a difference between being innocent and being acquitted.

It's a brave new world; Why have jury trials at all? It's all over the press -- The Herald, the AP, The Sun-Sentinel.

Here's part from Mike Mayo's blog:

Lemorin had a preliminary hearing before U.S. Immigration Judge William A. Cassidy on Thursday. Cassidy was in Atlanta; Lemorin appeared by video from Lumpkin.According to Lemorin, Cassidy said, "There's a difference between being acquitted and being innocent.""That was very strange to me," Lemorin said. "I always heard that you were innocent until proven guilty, and I'd been found not guilty by a jury of my peers. I asked somebody if he could explain that, but he moved on to something else. It was weird.... There are a lot of things I don't understand."Immigration hearings have a lower burden of proof than criminal trials. Government documents filed last week claimed that Lemorin was a member of a terrorist group and he was likely to get involved in terrorism if he stayed in the country."I'm not a threat to the United States of America," Lemorin said. "I love this country. My son and daughter are here, so this will always be my country."Lemorin's immigration attorney, Charles Kuck, said the full immigration hearing is tentatively set for late May. He requested bond and a change of venue to Miami."You have the government getting a second bite of the apple because of the way immigration law is set up," Kuck said. He said the case should be a wake-up call for legal permanent residents to get their full citizenship. "Anybody who's not a citizen should be very, very concerned."Said Lemorin: "The same thing could happen to anybody."

Mayo concludes:

Lemorin and his family moved to Atlanta before the government made the highly publicized arrests. ... Because of a continuing gag order, Lemorin could not discuss specifics of his cases, including the concluded criminal trial.The whole thing seems astounding.An acquitted man might not truly be free until he gets shipped off to Haiti.