⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

Adel Daoud challenges convictions and a twenty-seven-year prison sentence in three linked criminal cases. In 2012, he tried to detonate what he believed was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar. The device was inert and supplied by an undercover FBI agent. While jailed, Daoud solicited that agent's murder and later violently attacked another inmate. During pretrial proceedings, he was found incompetent to stand trial, then regained competence after treatment. In 2018, he entered an Alford plea: a guilty plea made while maintaining innocence. His original sixteen-year sentence was overturned after the government appealed, and he was resentenced to twenty-seven years. At this hearing, the court will consider his request to withdraw the plea, his decision to represent himself at resentencing, and his challenge to the sentence. The discussion focuses on his mental health, the risks of proceeding without a lawyer, and how much weight mitigating circumstances should receive. We hear the Seventh Circuit's oral argument on September thirtieth, twenty twenty-six.

United States v. Adel Daoud (No. 24-2367) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, argued September 30, 2026.