Sabir, a polygamist who has had four wives

he talked about a domestic dispute in 2002. He was accused of disappearing with his two young children on a trip to Pennsylvania without telling their distraught mother.

"I don't need her permission to take my children," Sabir said. "I don't need to tell her where I'm going."

The doctor was also questioned about his anger over having to repay student loans.

He reacted defiantly again as he was questioned about a time he slapped a daughter and handcuffed her to a radiator for failing to dress quickly enough for school. "She punched me in my face!" Sabir said, saying that was why he slapped her.

"...handcuffed her to a radiator" Only a couple of years ago and this type of incident wouldn't have even been construed as violent deep down thar in the South. If I recall recent history correctly the South had a so called "Neighbor Hooded" watches that helped to clean the area by hanging the "undesirables" to trees. <S.R.A.>

"...for failing to dress quickly enough for school."
Boca Raton - according to Wikipedia has several public schools that are managed by the Palm Beach County school district and there are "several notable private and religious schools." there as well. It would be interesting to see what school he sent his children to be educated. <S.R.A.>

After reading about his Terrorist ties I'm left wondering about why he would do these things to his daughter for "failing to dress quickly enough"? Was it because she didn't have her Burqa on in a timely manor? <once again S.R.A. alert>

Just a thought... Maybe I should change my S.R.A. alerts from a text based alert to a color coded degree of Sarcasm. I believe the color coded alert system works much better in this post 9/11 age. <S.R.A. or Red Alert - Serious Chance of a Sarcasm Attack - Duct Tape Your Monitors and Fear Everything>

...but he sure isn't presenting a sympathetic portrait of himself for the jury.

The self-representation bit that Mr. Sabir is attempting could end up hurting his chances. A lawyer (also a known as a P.R. agent) could study the jury and the public opinion during this case and make suggestions to Mr. Sabir how to adjust his P.R. value. If the majority of the jury look like Nascar fans, the Attorney could purchase some Nascar memorabilia for Mr. Sabir to display during the hearing. A Nascar coffee cup, maybe a Nascar writing tablet. I would suggest that he only stick to Nascar in general because there is a very likely chance that if he were to single out one Nascar driver, he might pick the wrong driver and the Jury would condemn him based on that driver.

Also, the Attorney could do some investigative work to see what the majority of the Jury's preference is in Politics and Religion so that Mr. Sabir could play to those areas. One possible defense to the

"time he slapped a daughter and handcuffed her to a radiator"

And no, the vast majority of men do not handcuff their daughters to radiators, do not have 4 wives,  do not run off with children setting off an inter-state manhunt.

What you fail to do is mention this:

They also discussed passages from religious books. One said Jews should be expelled from the Arabian peninsula. Another said Muslims are obligated to obey an imam who declares war against nonbelievers. Hou asked Sabir whether he agreed with both passages, and he said yes but added that Muslims are only required to follow such instructions from a legitimate religious authority.

Hou pressed him further: "You believe that you must participate in armed jihad, if you get a chance to?"

"Yes," Sabir answered, but said only in a legitimate conflict.

So we now see that he agrees to engage in jihad, if he considers it to be a legitimate conflict, as defined by a legitimate religious authority who is an Imam....

Isn't that something the US government does?

Would you think that was okay if this had been a Baptist???

This guy is a "fellow traveler" who decided to pledge his support and got caught doing so.

 I grew up just south of Boca Raton, spanish for "Mouth of the Rat" it's an upwardly mobile yuppie community, home of Florida Atlantic University, the country's fastest-growing University.  It's an intermediate community bridging the gap between the upper middle class and the wealthy.  Its name comes from the Boca Inlet which looks like a rat's mouth from a geographic perspective.

Boca hasn't really been a retirement community since the 80s.  My grandfather bought a condo on the beach in Boca for about $60,000 back in the 70s, that same two-bedroom condo is worth 2.2 million now.

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What a sweetheart.  If this guy doesn't have mental illness issues, he's obviously got some serious hostility problems.

  Even evidence that would be inadmissible pursuant to proper and timely objection can be admitted (and review of its admission on apeal extemely curtailed) if there is no objection.

  It would seem that there is little or not relevance of these prior acts to a charge of aiding terrorists. In fact, the admission of  these  may  be so extreme and so great in number that an appeals court would take a very close even on a plain error review.

  This prosecutor seems to be going overboard and that would tend to indicate he either does not have a great case on then instant charges or if he does have a good case  that HE also has trouble keeping his personal emotions in check and is injecting potential error into the case.

  Generally, rulings on the admission of evidence are reviewed for "abuse of discretion." this means basically that you have to show that there was error and the error was not harmless error. This, as are all standards of reiview other than "de novo" which applies to a lower court's rulings on issues of law, is deferential to the district court's ruling but it is far less deferential than the "plain error" standard which is employed when there is no objection (or sometimes the "wrong objection).

To get relief under the plain error standard you have to establish: that was error;  that the error was "plain." ("plain" basically means  "clear" or "obvious."); and that the plain error "affects substantial rights."

   A huge difference between "harmless error" and "plain error" is  that with "plain error" the defendant rather than the Government has the  burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice. It can make a big difference in determining outcome when the defendant has to show there was prejudice as to when the government has to show there was not.