Still, while the federal government has prosecuted nearly 500 cases of international terrorism over the past 15 years, there have been only a "handful" of state prosecutions across the country, said Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University's Center on National Security.
"There's been a lot of criticism of the State prosecution, how they dealt with the case.
More troubling, however, was the response of the state prosecution service, which took up their case and charged the organisers with "debasing the religious beliefs of citizens and inciting religious hatred".
It shines a light on issues such as police misconduct and an institutional bias in favour of the state prosecution that extends beyond the case itself.In the summer of 1993, West Memphis in Arkansas was ripped apart by the brutal murder of three eight-year-old boys found naked in a ditch, limbs tied and genitals mutilated.
A few months later, in a bizarre turn of events, the state prosecution found itself playing the role of Katsav's defense — citing the statute of limitations and a lack of sufficient evidence in an attempt to justify to the Supreme Court why it had offered him a deal that would essentially let him off the hook.
So astounding was his plight, it helped spur the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, its lawyers since defending scores of hackers against state prosecution.
It's time to introduce tougher measures," said Jose Bispo of the Pernambuco state prosecution service.
Perhaps the Justice Department and the President hedged their bets, not willing to take any chances of a failed state prosecution and the effect it would have on the nation.
It also said the F.B.I. had assisted in the 2010 state prosecution of a former Alabama trooper, James Bonard Fowler, in the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old civil rights marcher who died after a confrontation with the police in 1965.
It has also confused many in the broader public and observers abroad, who expected to see a firm state prosecution of the assassin.
