A lecturer and scholar of Islam convicted of inducing others to levy war against the U.S. after Sept. 11, 2001, was freed from serving his remaining sentence Friday, when a unanimous Fourth Circuit panel ruled that his speech was protected under the First Amendment.

Though statements Ali Al-Timimi made during gatherings with other young Muslim men days after the attack were "inflammatory, disturbing, and deeply offensive," he did not encourage a specific and imminent unlawful act or provide exact details about how to accomplish it, U.S. Circuit Judge James Andrew Wynn said, writing for the panel in a published opinion. Accordingly, the panel vacated Al-Timimi's remaining convictions and remanded his case to Virginia federal court for acquittal.

"In this case, Al-Timimi's remaining convictions rest not on criminal conduct carried out through speech, but on the substance of — and perceived threat posed by — the mere ideas expressed," Judge Wynn said.

In the 31-page opinion, the federal appellate judges emphasized their role in policing the boundaries of the First Amendment by leaning on a century-old, yet famed, U.S. Supreme Court dissent and prodding the boundaries of the high court's 1969 ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the justices said an Ohio law violated a Ku Klux Klan leader's right to free speech. They referenced other circuit cases dealing with Brandenburg to show that Al-Timimi's speech did not solicit an action as specific as, say, telling someone, as Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman did, to "turn his rifle's barrel" on former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a planned 1993 visit to the U.S.

Plenty of speech encouraging criminal activity is shielded under the First Amendment, but certain characteristics gut those protections, such as when it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action," Judge Wynn said, citing Brandenburg. Words are enough to show facilitation and solicitation with completing a crime, but both also require intent for a particular criminal act, according to the opinion.

By those guidelines, the panel ruled that Al-Timimi's speech did not fall within any exceptions for First Amendment protection.

"The First Amendment's protection does not depend on the popularity or palatability of the message conveyed. On the contrary, it is most vital when speech offends, disturbs, or challenges prevailing sensibilities," Judge Wynn said.

First, the panel found that his speech did not constitute incitement of imminent lawless action. Under Brandenburg, the advocated-for lawless action must be "imminent" or happening quite soon. To interpret just how far in the future the criminal action needs to occur to no longer be "imminent," the panel turned to a 100-year-old dissent from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

In his now well-known dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States, Justice Holmes cautioned that jurists must be "eternally vigilant" to attempts to curtail the expression of opinions "fraught with death" unless they "so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required," the justice wrote.

In addition to being imminent, the action must also be definite, or advocate lawlessness with "sufficient particularity" to prevail under the Brandenburg standard, Judge Wynn said. Taking together those requirements, Al-Timimi's speech urged criminal activity that wasn't imminent enough to rob him of First Amendment protection, according to the opinion.

At gatherings after 9/11, Al-Timimi encouraged attendees to "join the mujahideen" and travel to Pakistan to join Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a group with a philosophy grounded in Salafi Islamic beliefs, that ran schools and libraries in Pakistan but also maintained a militant wing. Or, Al-Timimi said, attendees could leave America to "live with the good Muslims" in another country, according to the opinion.

But these exhortations were "vague and general" Judge Wynn said, as Al-Timimi specified no time frame and no specific details as to how to carry those actions out.

To illustrate why evidence against Al-Timimi wasn't enough to show imminence, the panel referenced the Third Circuit's 2009 ruling in United States v. Fullmer. There, judges affirmed convictions of an anti-animal testing organization after posts on a website urged civil disobedience at a specific time, and provided the tools to do so.

The judges also said Al-Timimi's speech didn't constitute unprotected solicitation or aiding and abetting of a crime, the basis for five of the seven remaining charges against him. Those charges included counseling and inducing others to conspire to levy war, to attempt to aid the Taliban or inducing others to carry rocket-propelled grenades.

To aid and abet a crime is to successfully provide assistance to a wrongdoer by detailing the specific means of committing crimes, according to the opinion.

"Al-Timimi did not help anyone to commit crimes. To be sure, he encouraged them. But the most that he did to further the commission of these crimes was to advise individuals — in quite general terms — on how to react to the September 11 attacks," Judge Wynn said.

Ali Al-Timimi helped found an Islamic Center called "Dar al-Arqam" in Falls Church, Virginia, where he was a well-known lecturer on Islam. He authored several books and tapes, many of which focused on violent jihad between Muslims and non-Muslims, according to court filings.

In late 2004, a Virginia grand jury returned a six-count indictment, charging Al-Timimi with aiding and abetting, conspiring and attempting to contribute to terrorist groups, premised on things he said during meetings he attended after 9/11. Those statement were alleged to have inspired young men to travel to Pakistan and train with terrorist groups.

Four additional charges were later added. After a multiweek trial, a jury found him guilty on all counts. He moved for acquittal, but was denied. The court sentenced him in July 2005 to life imprisonment on one count and several years on other counts, to be served consecutively.

He appealed right away, but the case took a number of procedural detours, prolonging the litigation for two decades.

Those "detours" included his bid for the government to disclose its possible use of surveillance programs and Supreme Court rulings that invalidated part of the definitions of "crime of violence" and "violent felony," allowing him to successfully get three convictions vacated in July 2024, one of which had carried the life sentence.

Since September 2020, he has been serving his remaining sentence in home confinement.

Al-Timimi's counsel, Geremy C. Kamens of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement to Law360 that he and his client are relieved and gratified by the decision.

"When courts refuse to allow convictions based merely on the expression of ideas — no matter how alarming those ideas may be to some — they vindicate the First Amendment's core promise and demonstrate the strength of our system of government. The protection of unpopular speech is what distinguishes a nation governed by law from one that suppresses the voices of dissent against those in power," Kamens said.

Additional counsel for Al-Timimi, Thomas M. Huff, echoed Kamens' sentiment about the end of the high-profile and emotionally charged case.

He clarified to Law360 that though Al-Timimi has been routinely mislabeled as a "terrorism" defendant, the underlying issues in the case did not involve any terrorism charges, a point made explicit in a 2020 district court opinion ordering his release to house arrest.

The government did not reply to a request for comment Friday.

U.S. Circuit Judges James Andrew Wynn, Stephanie D. Thacker and Pamela A. Harris sat on the panel for the Fourth Circuit.

Al-Timimi is represented by Geremy C. Kamens of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia and Thomas M. Huff.

The government is represented by Gordon D. Kromberg of the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The case is U.S. v. Ali Al-Timimi, case number 14-4451, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

--Editing by Rich Mills.