A federal appeals panel has upheld the convictions of five men responsible for planning to attack Fort Dix.

A seemingly desperate attempt by defense lawyers has netted few results in a federal appeals court. The attorneys were hoping to get their five clients’ convictions and resulting sentences overturned, claiming the 2008 trial wrongly relied on a law aimed at gathering foreign intelligence, which the men weren’t trying to do.

Salon reports the men were only planning to attack Fort Dix or other military bases, but the three-judge panel at the federal appeals court in Philadelphia has never the less upheld the convictions and sentences of the five New Jersey men, saying that it was legal to use information gathered through a Patriot Act provision.

It wasn’t all for naught, though. One charge against one defendant was thrown out on the base that the charge he was convicted of doesn’t exist. Umm, OK. Regardless, his life sentence remains in tact.