Former Chief Military Commissions Prosecutor Morris Davis, remembering 2005 discussions with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes, reported that Haynes had said that the military commission trials would be “the Nuremberg of our time.” Davis pointed out, in response, that the acquittals at Nuremberg had lent credibility to the proceedings.
“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis recalled, in an interview with The Nation. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals. We’ve got to have convictions.’”
That strikes me as a significant problem with justice. Fortunately, both Presidential candidates are on record as being against the whole Gitmo idiocy - hopefully they'll get in before the current mess runs to any sort of conclusion and inject some sanity.
More stupidity from the DoD - they seem hell bent on ensuring a conviction rather than giving the opportunity for a fair trial, ie. one that can have evidence challenged and maybe even thrown out by an impartial judge.
"The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify, keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimize certain legal issues,"
In short - destroy anything that may be used to challenge evidence. If this crap happened in a civilian trial the whole thing would get tossed out in a heartbeat so I don't understand why the DoD is trying so hard to screw themselves. Perhaps a clash of culture?
I think some top military leaders and their civilian counterparts know the shit they're doing ain't legal. They don't want it to see the light of day, as it would probably land a few of them in jail, end careers, etc.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
I looked over the bill of rights a few times, maybe I am missing something..Where does it say that any court proceedings on american soil only afford the sixth ammendment rights to american / naturalised citizens?
far as I could tell , stipulations were state laws could not preceed federal law and that if your presence nor the crime commited were in the state where the trial is being held, you could not be tried.
The whole thing is very legally shaky in terms of trying someone under US military law for an act committed by a non-military person in Afghanistan (or random other countries the CIA snatched these people from). Notionally they are being held under international war crimes laws, which are essentially based on the Geneva Conventions, however the government has also been claiming the Geneva Conventions don't apply and generally making the rules up as they go along and the Geneva Conventions themselves treats these people mostly as common criminals that should be returned to their home nations for trial rather than taken to US soil.
Still funny to watch Embar post on this like his posts of 2003 and 2004 on Padilla never ever happened.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Search on me and "padilla", see what comes up. Maybe you're confusing me with someone else. I've stated that the US mishandled Padilla (and Padilla is diferent than Gitmo, since Padilla is a US citizen). I've always argued for the preservation of habeus corpus in regards to US citizens, although again, that doesn't apply to non-citizens.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Silly rabbit. The search function only goes back to December 2004. Convenient for those who wish to misremember the past.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Silly rabbit or not, there were 2 posts through Decemeber 2004 where Padilla is mentioned in the post. That's half the time period you were pointing out. Only 2 posts in the entire year.
I think you have me confused with someone else, or you just want to beleive something about me without any basis.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Partha wrote:Silly rabbit. The search function only goes back to December 2004. Convenient for those who wish to misremember the past.
It's not just the search function. Prior to that database pruning deleted old posts, so they're permanently gone. I'd revive them if I could, but I can't.
