In its only opinion on the scope of the law , the New York Court of Appeals limited the scope of the law and overturned a terrorism conviction where the underlying specified offense was a murder committed as part of a rivalry between two gangs . After noting that the Anti-Terrorism Act was enacted in the wake of 9/11 and that the legislative findings mentioned six other instances of terrorism necessitating the law : the Oklahoma City bombing , foreign embassy bombings , Pan-Am Flight 103 , 1997 shooting at the Empire State Building , 1994 murder of Ari Halberstam on the Brooklyn Bridge , and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing , the Court found that gang violence was not within the intended scope of the law : If we were to apply a broad definition to " intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population , " the People could invoke the specter of " terrorism " every time a Blood assaults a Crip or an organized crime family orchestrates the murder of a rival syndicate 's soldier . But the concept of terrorism has a unique meaning and its implications risk being trivialized if the terminology is applied loosely in situations that do not match our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act.Though gang violence falls outside of the scope of the Act , widespread violence is not necessary for a crime to be a crime of terrorism . The 1994 Brooklyn Bridge attack , which resulted in one killed and three wounded is listed in the legislative findings of the Anti-Terrorism Act as a terrorist attack . In 2012 , a trial court sustained a terrorism indictment against a defendant accused of plotting to “ shoot those attending religious services and to detonate at least one grenade in one synagogue ; ” the defendant later pleaded guilty . And in 2019 James Jackson pleaded guilty to first degree murder as a crime of terrorism for the 2017 killing Timothy Caughman in an attempt to start a race war
foreign embassy bombings
1998 United States embassy bombings
Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 (New York)