The Glade 4.0

Oh, sure. I was thinking detainees from combat situations.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I think that due process of law should be followed. I believe that any confession he made during interrogation are inadmissible, as he was being tortured. The state is going to have to make a case based on evidence of the crime.

Were I his lawyer, I would argue that *any* information we obtained from anyone we locked in Gitmo without access to due process rights should be tossed out.

That is not to say I want to see this man go free. And I want to make sure *no one* misunderstands that. However, greater than this man's freedom or incarceration are the fundamental principles behind our legal system. We allowed the previous regime to break that system, and there are consequences for that.

edit - honestly, we should have tried these guys at the Hague.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Yeah it wasnt a "gotcha" question I was curious if you felt his detention and water boarding entitled him to a not guilty verdict. You seem to be saying that even though he was boarded and detained, if they have enough evidence gathered in what you'd consider a legitimate way, then he can be found guilty.

Again I'd say there is absolutely zero chance this man walks. He may even be found not guilty and be "indefinitely detained". Do you think there is a chance he gets off?

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I agree, he will not likely walk. There is always a *chance* he could go free, I simply think that chance is astronomical.

In all honesty, there is a part of me that does say "if we tortured them, they have every right to seek legal action against us", even if they are murderous terrorist scumbags.

The best thing would be to try these guys on the evidence, convict them without the things we got via torture, and then also try the people that tortured these guys, all the way up the chain.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

What evidence, exactly?

Anything after he was taken into custody is inadmissible in a civilian court.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

That may be true. Though, I doubt every piece of evidence would be thrown out. Anything collected on them before the crime links them to it at a time when they had not yet been taken.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Were they Mirandized, given a lawyer, and given habeas corpus? If not, then everything after they were captured is inadmissible in a civilian court of law.

If a judge believes otherwise, and decides so, they're destroying due process in this country; which is what Khross and I have been railing about.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

They don't need to be mirandized. And no, they had no access to a lawyer and habeas rights. Its possible that everything after they were captured will be tossed out in a civillian court of law, according to due process.

A judge may agree to keep that evidence in, and you are right, that judge will be in error. Impeach them. The prisoners will have a right to appeal, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

That isn't what the Constitution and the USSC say about criminal suspects.



Indeed.



No, it's mandatory that everything after they were captured be thrown out, unless we instead wish to through out due process, the Constitution, and 700 years of US and English Common Law precedence.



Indeed, as I said earlier in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=16040#p16040

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You might want to look that up again.




Nooo, it's possible.





It's irrelevant what good can come out of it. We have a due process of law, and we should follow it.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

No problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona

First paragraph






Yes, and it's possible they'll instead choose to throw out the rule of law and the Constitution with it. Those are the only choices.





And in following it, all evidence after they were captured must be tossed. Otherwise, we wouldn't be following process of law, and instead some made up arbitrary process of the Executive Branch.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

They were mirandized when they hit US soil.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You are correct. I was under the impression that the 2000 case (Dickerson?) had turned out differently.




That's hyperbole. There is an appeals process for a reason.





I don't disagree. Again, that doesn't mean we can't convict them. It just means it's going to be hard to do so.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Fair enough, I was talking about the trial court itself. If you include the appeals process you're correct, insofar as it goes. The USSC itself would in the end have to make that choice though. Somebody will have to.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The Constitution allows for more than one due process of law. Civil and Criminal are already 2 different processes, as is UCMJ. There's various international treaties that establish more in regards to crimes like piracy and being an unlawful combatant. There is no reason we should follow the normal criminal process, nor is our system of justice threatened if we don't.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

The Court ruling on Military Tribunals makes it clear that if they are granted access to be tried in U.S. Federal Courts, instead of through Military or Congressional Justice Tribunals, they are to be afforded all the rights, protections, and privileges of U.S. Citizens operating within that system.

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Why the heck aren't we transferring them to the Hague as international war criminals?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Is it your position then that Bush was right and these are enemy combatants and not people with bad intentions?

That wasn't ever my position. The term Enemy Combatant was a fabrication made to avoid following our obligations to international law. It's my position that the Bush administration should be tried at the Hague as well for violating international law in the prosecution of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. That is an entirely separate issue from what we are talking about here.

These men still committed a heinous crime. If the evidence can still support a conviction, they should be tried and convicted. I would prefer this play out on the international stage, like Nuremburg, because 9-11 had global ramifications in addition to the heaviest cost paid by the US.

Then again, I think the heaviest cost *was* paid by the US, and that trying them in New York is proper justice.

Sigh. It's complicated, that's for sure.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Then perhaps I am misremembering your position, but I seem to recall you being very vocal that they were not "enemy combatants" because of the nature of the conflict and that we were not in a declared war (no one to declare against).

If they are not enemy combatants, then they are not war criminals, and are just over achieving "criminal" of a more mundane type.

Or are you suggesting that the scope of their actions defines them as committing crimes against humanity?

You might be remembering the paper I posted from the Red Cross that argued that anyone in a theater of war was covered under the Geneva Conventions.

In my opinion, someone like KSM is a criminal. He should be prosecuted as a criminal. The people they scooped up on the battlefield? They should have been treated as POWs.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Technically, the United States is not at war. Congressionally authorized military incursions against nations which have neither declared war nor exacted overt hostilities against the United States is a neat place to be with regard International Law. After all, even Milosevic wasn't found guilty of Geneva Convention violations. I don't even think the ICT pursued those charges in fact.

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He wasn't found guilty, but isn't that because he died before the trial was finished? He was charged under the Geneva Conventions, specifically laws or customs of war provisions.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

For someone that was a lawyer you would think he would know better, but a case can be made that Obama and Holder (?) just sabotaged the case.

I understand that. I was speaking to the assumption that there is only one form of due process.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."