Constitutional Law

Issue Brief: "A Call to Protect Civilian Justice: Beware the Creep of Military Tribunals"

ACS released an Issue Brief today entitled “A Call to Protect Civilian Justice: Beware the Creep of Military Tribunals,” by Anthony F. Renzo, Professor of Law at Vermont Law School.

Professor Renzo calls the Bush Administration’s claim of authority to subject civilians detained in the United States to trial by military commission unprecedented in scope and lacking in historical support. He explains that “[t]he Constitution places the power to punish a civilian for wrongdoing, including criminal conduct in support of enemy organizations, in the hands of an independent civilian court and jury.” 

Professor Renzo notes “[t]he very purpose of the original English common law right to trial by a civilian jury was to protect against the oppression of the King’s use of military courts and judges who owed their loyalty to the King.” He concludes that constitutional text and tradition require that civilians be provided with a civilian jury trial unless a civilian court determines that the detainee is “either under the command of the enemy’s armed forces or engaged in battlefield hostilities against American forces.” 

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).