Legal News

Morris Davis, Former Gitmo Prosecutor, to Testify for Bin Laden?s Driver

By Dan Slater

A couple months back, the Law Blog noted that Salim Hamdan — Osama bin Laden’s former driver — gained a star witness in his case: Gitmo’s former chief prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis. Today, Davis, who resigned last year amid a flap with the Defense Department, is expected to testify on Hamdan’s behalf.

In a walk-up to the Gitmo hearing, the WSJ’s Jess Bravin has penned a profile of Davis, who, writes Bravin, is expected to testify regarding the same quip that led to his resignation: that the Bush administration’s military commissions — an operation Davis once led — has been “infected with political agendas and corrupted by the Achilles’ heel of military justice — unlawful command influence.”

“It’s not that I’m sympathetic to the detainees or say they should get a free pass,” said Davis, 49, now director of the Air Force Judiciary. “But I do think they are entitled to a fair trial.”

Hamdan’s military attorney, Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, says Col. Davis makes “an incredibly credible witness” because he still supports military commissions, in principle, and makes no bones about his belief that most Gitmo prisoners are guilty. “He probably even believes that my client is one of those bad men,” says Cmdr. Mizer, although “we certainly don’t agree on that point.”

According to the piece, Davis (North Carolina Central law) is a “folksy North Carolinian” who plays the electric guitar, loves Nascar racing, and may be the only field officer to pay his way through college by working as a bail bondsman. After law school, Davis joined the JAG Corps, the Air Force’s legal branch, and was serving as deputy commandant of the Air Force JAG School in Alabama on 9/11. In 2005 he was asked to take over as chief prosecutor at Gitmo.

In 2006, after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s first effort to set up military commissions, Davis worked with staffers for John McCain and Lindsey Graham to help fashion the Military Commissions Act, which reinstated a modified version of the trials. But Davis now argues that the Pentagon breached a provision he helped write to shield the prosecutor from improper influence.

“I’m the only person I know of who left the commissions who didn’t get a decoration,” Davis said. “Everybody else when they left, they had a farewell lunch and they gave him a framed picture. For me it was pack up in the middle of the night and get the h*** out.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 28, 2008 (boomark / email).