The trial of alleged Al Qaeda accomplice Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has resulted in an acquittal on all major terrorism charges in New York. Ghailani was charged with crimes related to the 1998 suicide bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. I will be discussing the verdict tonight on Hardball.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was convicted only of one count of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property but cleared of 276 counts of murder and attempted murder. The important thing to note here is that this is a unanimous series of acquittal votes — not some hung jury.
The Obama Administration made little secret that it wanted the trial in New York — the scene of the 9-11 attacks. It did not help with the jury which found the evidence (as opposed to the emotions) lacking. The government still intends to seek life without parole on that one conspiracy charge.
In a truly disturbing response to the verdict, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) denounced the jury verdict as “a total miscarriage of justice” and insisted “this tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try Al Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts.” Of course, no one would accuse New Yorkers as being ambivalent on terrorism.
Nevertheless, Rep. King’s solution to a jury of citizens acquitting an accused person is to rig the system to avoid such juries in the future. It is the most raw demonstration that the interest in the tribunal system is the view that it is outcome determinative and pre-set for convictions. Rep. King appears to be joining the Queen of Hearts that we must have a system that guarantees “sentence first, verdict afterwards.”
Here is tonight’s debate with Governor Pataki on Hardball (title on youtube is not my own):
Source: LA Times
Jonathan Turley
BIL,
“Torture is forbidden by treaty and statute and your semantics about “uniforms” is simply apologist crap to protect, duh, torturers and traitors.”
Where in my comment did you see where I alluded to anything about the authorized use of torture? Don’t insert your premise into my argument.
The wearing of uniforms (identifying insignia) is relevant to the discussion as it is directly related to Article IV of the Geneva Convention.
“That “rant” was neither tangential nor written by me.”
I was not referring to your most recent post (Washington University Law Review article), I was referring to your earlier comment that was directed at me. That one was tangential (i.e. corporations) and I assume it was written by you (or someone who assumed your virtual identity).
I don’t have to admit squat, BBB.
You believe whatever made up speculative crap you like. Your irrational fear is not reflected in the probabilities.
I’ll stick with the math.
“Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” – Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1738)
You may recognize it by the popular paraphrase, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”
“based on historical data your chances of being killed or harmed in a terrorist attack are about 9.3 million to one.”
Relevance?
You’ve got to admit that the capability of successfully launching a terrorist attack has increased dramatically in recent years along with the potential to result in mass casualties.
BBB,
Yeah, I recognize the laws of war . . . in the context of international and domestic law. The problem is that you don’t. Torture is forbidden by treaty and statute and your semantics about “uniforms” is simply apologist crap to protect, duh, torturers and traitors.
In re “humor”, it’s too bad I don’t take orders from you. That post wasn’t meant to be funny. That “rant” was neither tangential nor written by me. If you actually read the post, you’d have understood it was citing an excellent summary from a Washington University Law Review article. If it wasn’t funny enough for you, take it up with the article’s author, Winston Huhn.
BIL,
Tangential rants should at least be humorous.
Do you not recognize the “laws of war” to be included in your “rule of law”?
Do you not recognize trials by military commission?
Funny Latin American dictators that is.
Mespo: “I am, even now, water-boarding my local Lances’ Cracker truck driver in the hopes of preventing a holocaust.”
Spoken like a true fan of Latin American dictators.
As much as I’ve enjoyed your political diatribe disguised as legal ignorance, waterboarding is torture under Federal law and international treaty in addition to the Constitution.
“The four principal statutes which Congress has adopted to implement the provisions of the foregoing treaties are the Torture Act,[23] the War Crimes Act,[24],and the laws entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government”[25] and “Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”[26] The first two statutes are criminal laws while the latter two statutes extend civil rights to any person in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world.
The Torture Act makes it a felony for any person, acting under color of law, to commit an act of torture upon any person within the defendant’s custody or control outside the United States.[27] Torture is defined as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” upon a person within the defendant’s custody or control.[28] To be “severe,” any mental pain or suffering resulting from torture must be “prolonged.”[29] Under this law, torture is punishable by up to twenty years imprisonment unless the victim dies as a result of the torture, in which case the penalty is death or life in prison.[30]
The War Crimes Act differs from the Torture Act in several respects. It applies to acts committed inside or outside the United States, not simply to acts committed outside the United States.[31] Second, it prohibits actions by any American citizen or any member of the armed forces of the United States, not simply to persons acting under color of law.[32] Third, violations of the War Crimes Act that do not result in death of the victim are punishable by life in prison, not simply for a term of twenty years.[33] Finally, when it was enacted in 1996, the War Crimes Act did not mention torture or any other specific conduct like the Torture Act does, but rather contained a very broad definition of the offense. The original statute provided that “war crimes” included any “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions.[34] In 2006, in the Military Commissions Act, Congress defined the term “grave breach” of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to include “torture” as well as “cruel or inhuman treatment” of prisoners.[35] As in the Torture Act, the War Crimes Act (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006) defines “torture” as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”[36] Cruel or inhuman treatment is defined as “serious physical or mental pain or suffering,” and also includes “serious physical abuse.”[37] The law defines “serious physical pain or suffering” as including “extreme physical pain.”[38] All of these clarifications of the term “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 were made retroactive to 1997.[39] The 2006 Act replaced the requirement that mental harm be “prolonged” with a more broad definition that mental harm be merely “serious and non-transitory.”[40]
The third federal statute that prohibits waterboarding is entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons under Custody or Control of the United States Government.”[41] This law was enacted in 2005 as part of the Detainee Treatment Act,[42] and in 2006 it was supplemented in the Military Commissions Act by a statutory provision entitled “Additional Prohibition on Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”[43] These civil rights laws very simply state that no person under the physical control of the United States anywhere in the world may be subjected to any “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,”[44] and they each define “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” to be any treatment or punishment which would violate the Fifth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.[45] These civil rights laws award the same rights to all prisoners who are in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world as citizens of the United States are entitled to under the Constitution. This means that if it is unconstitutional to subject prisoners in the United States to waterboarding, then it is illegal to commit this act against prisoners in the War on Terror, wherever they are being detained.
There is no doubt that waterboarding is illegal under the plain language of each of these four statutes. When it is practiced in other countries, the State Department characterizes waterboarding as “torture.”[46] Waterboarding inflicts “severe pain and suffering” on its victims, both physically and mentally, and therefore it is torture within the meaning of the Torture Act and the War Crimes Act.[47] It inflicts “serious pain and suffering” upon its victims, and it qualifies as “serious physical abuse,” therefore it is “cruel or inhuman treatment” within the meaning of the War Crimes Act.[48] Finally, American courts have ruled that when prisoners in the United States are subjected to waterboarding, it is a violation of the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and therefore it would be a violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000dd and 2000dd-0 prohibiting cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.[49]”
To remove the rest of your ignorance, Jonny’s Mommy, you can read the rest of the Washington University Law Review article entitled “Waterboarding is Illegal” by Winston Huhn at http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/waterboarding-is-illegal/#_edn3
Much as I’ve enjoyed the chest thumping and other histrionic displays of moral superiority, most of you have overlooked a key fact: The defendant was not waterboarded, Turley’s idiotic assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. We know this because the CIA has waterboarded all of three suspects post-9/11, none of whom was Ghailani. As someone who purports to be an expert on the legal nuances of trying alleged terrorists, Turley should know as much. But also knowing full well that enunciation of the word can be counted on to elicit Pavolian howls of anguish from the terminally aggrieved set, he baselessly and irresponsibly trots out the waterboarding bugaboo all the same. How special.
Then there’s the not-so-subtle semantic distinction separating the words “coercion” and “torture.” Kaplan’s ruling does not contain so much as a single reference to torture, but in Turley’s crude formulation the concept, if not the word itself, is ever-present, as if coercion and torture were synonymous, which they plainly are not. Again one has to suppose that scoring political points on the left is the real agenda. This whole line of argumentation is in fact a political exercise masquerading as a legal one.
The history of the jury system is instructive.
http://powertoxins.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-trial-by-jury.html
There is a very good article on this at the Lawfare blog. It raises a lot of points that should be familiar to some here, but puts them together in a nice, concise post. Briefly, here are the points:
1) “Ghailani will spend at least 20 years in prison and very likely will receive a life sentence.”
2) “[I]t really is not clear that prosecutors would have fared better in a military commission.”
3) “[T]here’s a lot of reason to think that the still-very-uncertain rules of the road in military commissions would have caused additional headaches.”
4) “[O]ne argument Ghailani will not have on appeal is that there is something wrong with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.”
It concludes: “Trial in federal court didn’t work out the way the Obama administration wanted, but it wasn’t a disaster–and we can’t honestly say it worked out worse than the military commission alternative would likely have done.”
Here is the article:
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2010/11/the-politics-of-the-ghailani-verdict/
Shifting back to reality. There’s some pretty awful stuff going on out there… It goes beyond what’s explicitly stated below:
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=1245
UN Human Rights Council completes review of US human rights record
November 19, 2010 at 10:59 am by Kelsey Genevich
…the Rights Working Group recommended that the Obama administration take the following actions:
1.The President should issue an executive order prohibiting racial profiling.
2.The Department of Justice (DOJ) should revise its June 2003 guidance on racial profiling to eliminate the loopholes created for national security and border searches, to include religion and national origin as protected classes, to apply the guidance to state and local law enforcement agencies, and to make it enforceable.
3.The 2002 DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) “inherent authority” memo that reversed historical trends to keep state and local law enforcement out of federal civil immigration work should be rescinded and OLC should issue a new memo clarifying that state and local law enforcement agents may not enforce federal immigration laws absent formal, federal authority.
4.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should terminate the 287(g) program. DHS should also suspend the implementation of the Criminal Alien Program, the Secure Communities Initiative and similar programs unless and until meaningful safeguards are put in place whenever collaborating with state and local law enforcement to ensure that racial profiling and other human rights violations are not occurring.
5.DHS should terminate the NSEERS program, repeal related regulations, and provide relief to unfairly impacted individuals.
6.The Obama administration should urge Congress to introduce and pass the End Racial Profiling Act which prohibits profiling on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity and national origin at the local, state and federal levels.
B & B (Buddha and Blouise):
Thanks for the education…. and the laughs.
Buddha,
I knew someone would catch my underlying message …
Wait a second.
Torture. Salty snacks. Beer.
Maybe mespo is simply gearing up for the Zombie Apocalypse?
. . . but he’ll be a well fed security extremist with a buzz. 😉
anon nurse,
… don’t laugh … it only encourages him … next it’ll be the Kebbler truck driving Elves and then our friendly Budweiser Beer-truck driver … the man is a security extremist! 8)
mespo
“I am, even now, water-boarding my local Lances’ Cracker truck driver in the hopes of preventing a holocaust.”
——-
lol
Bob,Esq:
“The odds are two times more likely that you’ll be killed by a falling vending machine than a terrorist attack.”
*************
I am, even now, water-boarding my local Lances’ Cracker truck driver in the hopes of preventing a holocaust.
Gyges,
Then I am doubly honored. One lives to be of service, but the intersection of Art & Brewing is also something worth living for in my experience. Salut!