Sept. 12 wasn't the best day to face charges of killing a cop. That's what lawyers for onetime Black Panther H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, figured when they got his trial, for shooting a Georgia deputy sheriff, pushed into next year. "To continue at such a time would be--well, I hate to say suicidal, given what happened on the 11th," says Al-Amin lawyer Jack Martin. "It would be ill advised."
The terrorist attacks have produced collateral damage in an unexpected place: criminal courtrooms. It's not hard to see why Al-Amin, an Islamic clergyman who shows up at...