Minnesota terror sentences expected to set national pattern

FILE - In this July 8, 2015 file photo, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis poses in his chambers in Minneapolis. David handed down sentences in November 2016 in a case that targeted a group of nine male friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who prosecutors say helped radicalize each other. The sentences he handed down are expected to set a pattern for other terrorism cases across the country. (AP Photo/Jeff Baenen, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this July 8, 2015 file photo, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis poses in front of a photo of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in his Minneapolis chambers. David handed down sentences in November 2016 in a case that targeted a group of nine male friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who prosecutors say helped radicalize each other. The sentences he handed down are expected to set a pattern for other terrorism cases across the country. (AP Photo/Jeff Baenen, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - This undated file photo provided the Sherburne County Sheriff's Office in Elk River, Minn., shows Abdirahman Daud, of Minnesota. Daud was sentenced at U.S. District Court in Minnesota on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016, to 30 years in prison for conspiring to join the Islamic State group in Syria. (Sherburne County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) (The Associated Press)

The sentences handed down in a Minnesota terrorism case are expected to set a pattern for other terrorism cases across the country.

The nine sentences meted out this week by federal Judge Michael Davis ranged from time served to 35 years.

The case targeted a group of young male friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who prosecutors say helped radicalize each other, watching hours of violent propaganda videos, including beheadings and burnings.

Fordham University terrorism expert Karen Greenberg says the sentencings are expected to guide judges handling other Islamic State-related terrorism cases across the country. She says Davis provided some "much needed" rationale for issuing a spectrum of sentences and treating defendants individually.

She says several other terrorism cases will be wrapping up in the next few months.