A father took his 3-year-old son from Georgia to a New Mexico compound, where the boy died; appeals court overturns relatives’ kidnapping convictions

A federal appeals court has overturned kidnapping convictions in the New Mexico compound case that began when a father took his disabled three-year-old son from Georgia. The court held that the jury was misdirected on what makes a kidnapping unlawful, and that the evidence could not show unlawful conduct by the father’s relatives while he held lawful parental rights. Two defendants who represented themselves at trial also had their convictions on separate charges vacated after being wrongly excluded from a key jury discussion. The case centres on the death of Abdul Ghani at a remote desert compound in New Mexico.What the court said happened when a father took his disabled son from his mother in GeorgiaAbdul Ghani was born in August 2014 with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, a brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen or blood flow, which delayed his development, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit’s opinion, published by Justia. He also had a form of cerebral palsy and experienced seizures. With medication, therapy and his mother’s care, he had begun speaking and moving independently by the age of three. His mother, Hakima Ramzi, was his primary caregiver, and no one else gave him his medication.The court’s account, drawn from trial testimony and evidence, says his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, came to believe that she was using black magic on the child. That belief rested on messages that a companion, Jany Leveille, claimed to receive from God. Siraj also believed the only remedy was ruqyah, which the opinion describes as a Muslim version of an exorcism. On either 30 November or 1 December 2017, while Ramzi was in the shower, he announced that he was taking the boy to the park. He did not return, and he left the child’s medication behind. A Georgia juvenile court later issued a pick-up order authorising police to retrieve the boy and place him with his mother, but by then he was already in New Mexico.From Alabama to a remote lot in Amalia, where the group built a compound and the boy diedDays after the boy was taken, Siraj, his sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, Subhanah’s husband Lucas Morton, Leveille and the group’s children left Georgia for Alabama. About ten days later they headed for New Mexico. They reached Amalia by 17 December and settled on an empty lot with no water or electricity, where they dug a hole and pushed a trailer into it.According to the opinion, Siraj and Leveille performed ruqyah on the boy every day, in sessions that lasted hours and left him screaming and crying. He died during one such session on 24 December. Leveille then prophesied that he would return as Jesus and lead the group against corrupt institutions, including federal agencies. The adults trained with firearms, built a firing range, hid weapons and dug a tunnel under the compound, where the boy’s body was eventually hidden.On 3 August 2018, the Taos County Sheriff’s Office obtained a warrant to search the compound. Officers arrested Siraj and Lucas and removed the others. One of the children later told officers that the boy’s body was in the tunnel.Why the court reversed kidnapping convictions against the father’s sisters and brother-in-lawFederal law bars unlawfully seizing, confining or carrying away another person, but it exempts a parent who takes his or her own child. Because of that exemption, prosecutors did not charge Siraj with kidnapping. They instead charged Hujrah, Subhanah and Lucas with conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping resulting in death, and a jury convicted all three.In the opinion issued on 6 October, as published by Justia, Circuit Judge Phillips wrote for a panel that also included Judges McHugh and Moritz. The jury had been told to decide whether the boy was old enough to consent to being taken. If he was not, jurors were to decide whether the taking went against his mother’s consent. The panel concluded that this approach misstated what the law means by an unlawful taking, and it reversed the three kidnapping convictions.A Sixth Amendment violation shut two self-represented defendants out of a jury note discussionThe jury convicted Siraj on three counts, which were, conspiracy to provide material support to kill federal officers, providing that support, and conspiracy to kill federal officers. It convicted Lucas on those counts and on both kidnapping counts, while acquitting Hujrah and Subhanah of the material support charges. The trial court sentenced all four defendants to life imprisonment. Leveille, a fifth defendant, had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to kill federal officers and to a firearms charge.Siraj and Lucas represented themselves at trial. The trial court excluded them from a conference about a note from the jury, a discussion the appeals court said was of tactical importance. It called this a structural error that violated their Sixth Amendment rights. The court vacated their convictions on the material support and conspiracy-to-kill counts and sent the case back for further proceedings.What the court rejected, from the search of the compound to claims of insufficient evidenceNot every argument succeeded. The court upheld the refusal to suppress evidence seized from the compound, reasoning that the defendants were more like trespassers than tenants on land owned by Jason and Tanya Badger, who had told them to leave. Officers seized firearms, ammunition and a bulletproof vest during the search. The panel also rejected Siraj’s request for a separate trial and treated a challenge to the indictment as waived.On the conspiracy-to-kill charge, the court agreed the jury instructions were wrong because they did not require proof that the intended victims were identified specifically enough to be federal officers. It found no reasonable probability of a different outcome, however. It also held that evidence of a plan to attack federal institutions after the boy’s expected resurrection, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, was enough to support the charge. A theory about killing any officers who approached the compound was not enough.Because of the reversals, the court did not rule on other claims, including prosecutorial misconduct and whether two of the life sentences were disproportionate.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.