Legal News

U.S. Seeks Death Penalty for Gitmo Six

By Dan Slater

This just in: The Pentagon has charged the Gitmo Six, the half-dozen men who allegedly figured prominently in the attacks of 9/11, and asked to have the men sentenced to death (click here for the NYT story, here for the WSJ’s). Though it may be months or longer until a trial begins at Gitmo’s Camp Justice (pictured), we hereby exercise Law Blog jurisdiction.

In today’s WSJ, colleague Jess Bravin pegs the protracted history of the prosecutions to Col. Lawrence J. Morris, the newly-installed chief prosecutor at Gitmo. Six years ago, as the head of the Army’s crimninal law branch, Morris was tasked with planning the first military commissions for prosecuting suspected terrorists. “At that time,” says the WSJ, “he proposed a high-profile public trial that would lay bare the scope of al Qaeda’s alleged conspiracy while burnishing the ideals of American justice.” Morris’s mission was sidelined by a Bush administration that decided to interrogate al Qaeda leaders in secrecy rather than seeking justice through a trial.

In addition to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attack, the government has reportedly charged five others.

Under the rules of the Guantánamo war-crimes system, the military prosecutors can designate charges as capital when they present them. The military official who then reviews them, Susan J. Crawford, a former military appeals court judge, has the authority to accept or reject a death-penalty request.

If Crawford accepts the request, one things’ for sure: controversy will follow. If any case warrants the death penalty, a Defense Department official told the NYT, “it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.” On the other hand, Tom Fleener, until recently a military defense lawyer at Guantánamo, questioned whether death-penalty cases would hold up the otherwise already bogged down Guantanamo justice system.

Said Fleener: “Neither the system is ready, nor are the defense attorneys ready to do a death penalty case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).