Legal Commentary

Timing the Guantanamo Trials

By TChris

The Bush administration's extraordinarily unsuccessful attempt to engineer a series of show trials at Guantanamo is about to accelerate.

The Pentagon has declared the Guantanamo war crimes trials a national priority and will more than double the number of military lawyers assigned to them ... . [A]bout 108 uniformed military lawyers [will] be added to the prosecution and defense teams in the next three months.

You think this has nothing to do with the upcoming election? Then why, after warehousing "enemy combatants" (or whatever the administration is calling them today) for the last six years without a single trial, have trials (perhaps including death penalty trials) become a sudden priority?

Pressed for details on the timing, [Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas] Hartmann said, "I don't know that it always wasn't the No. 1 priority but I know that it was formally declared the No. 1 priority in the last two or three weeks" by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Is the administration orchestrating an election year reminder of 9/11 in a sudden rush to judgment at Guantanamo? (more ...)

Preparations for the trial have already featured accusations of political manipulation, notably set forth by Air Force Col. Morris Davis, Guantanamo's former chief prosecutor. He has said under oath that the top legal advisor to Guantanamo's military commissions, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, interfered in his planning of trials at the base by demanding that he drum up "sexy", high-profile cases "with blood on them" to attract public support for convictions. That charge led a military judge several weeks ago to exclude Hartmann from further involvement in a prominent case. Davis has also accused the Pentagon's second-ranking civilian of telling him to quickly charge "high value" prisoners — like Mohammed — "because there could be strategic value before the (November) election." Both Hartmann and the Pentagon civilian, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, have disputed those allegations, though not under oath. ...

Lawyers for the accused also suspect a political motivation in the timing of the case, since both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, have said they would like to close down Guantanamo. Given that possibility, and an expected Supreme Court ruling later this month on the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo, it is almost certainly in the legal interests of the accused to see trial proceedings delayed — at least until a new administration in Washington potentially takes a different legal approach to dealing with terror suspects.

Quick trials and death sentences might please the Bush administration, but they might be even more satisfying to some of the defendants who relish the idea of martyrdom. Does it make sense to give them what they want?

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 08, 2008 (boomark / email).