http://bit.ly/4gsK8L - - - Not only does Graham have to tell him that there’s no precedent for trying battlefield detainees in civilian court, but Holder’s emphasis on how we don’t need a confession to convict Bin Laden completely misses the larger point Graham’s trying to make. The real worry in a district-court trial isn’t what’ll happen to archterrorists like Osama or KSM, whose perpetual detention is assured; the worry is that those trials will establish precedents that’ll be exploited by lesser jihadis at their own trials later on. KSM won’t be released because the political consequences to the administration are too dire, but what about some other terrorist who’s less well known to the public and whose guilt, while certain to the CIA, is less provable under normal evidentiary rules? A confession in a case like that might be critical — but what if he wasn’t Mirandized before he confessed? What then? That’s Graham’s point, and Holder seems to want nothing to do with it.
... Maybe they’re simply looking at the pile of admissible evidence they have for each detainee and deciding that guys with big piles go to civilian court, where they’re likely to be convicted anyway and The One can crow about “due process,” while guys with smaller piles go to military court, since a civilian trial might well result in them getting off. If that’s what they’re doing — i.e. a two-track justice system designed purely to maximize the government’s odds at conviction while minimizing the political risk of acquittal — then, like Patterico says, KSM’s trial is even more of a show trial than we thought. ... The decision on what “due process” is due, in other words, is based not on the nature of the underlying act — war perpetrated by a foreign enemy — but on the outcome The One wants to achieve, with Holder actually going so far today as to say, I kid you not, “Failure is not an option.” Isn’t failure always an option in a true due-process regime? - - - This does not end well. Whatever happens we will come away worse off for it. If KSM is convicted, it will only because a kind of "fix" is in to ignore the normal criminal rules of evidence and procedure, which do not apply to enemy combatants, least of all terrorists of KSM's ilk. So the justice system will look rigged, and set more bad precedents than anyone today imagines on levels too profound to contemplate. Surely if they can rig a political outcome when due process -- not owed to KSM, but granted, as it were, in the service of a curious political agenda -- is ignored, they can duplicate it in trials of actual citizens. If KSM is acquitted, all of the same imperfections of the system will be on display in HD, and meanwhile KSM will be detained anyway---which will feed even more animosity in the Muslim world. The possibility of his acquittal is something only an idiot would discount. O. J. Simpson, anyone? KSM was never read his Miranda rights -- which presumably now apply to him, since you can get almost any charge dismissed on that technicality alone. Then there is the pesky fact that the "President' has been proclaiming high and low, wherever he gets a chance, that this man was tortured (he's only one of three who was waterboarded), so a third grader could get his confessions thrown out for that reason alone. I mean, it's insane to risk this. Unless. Unless the purpose is at bottom political, and radical at that -- to indict the entire system of justice itself in a circus trial, and use whatever the outcome to demoralize the nation. Because that is all that can possibly come of so absurd a decision. And does anyone REALLY believe Obama didn't know about the decision or desire it, that Eric totally owns it? BS. That they're even trying to paint the illusion of plausible deniability is nonsense. Or did no one notice that ever since the CBO was, shall we say, dressed down by the White House in May, all of a sudden their budget estimates starting hitting right in the range that is deemed politically acceptable to el Presidente? (Before that the CBO was raining all the time on the Health Care parade.) And I won't even mention the Inspector General who Obama fired because his investigating was getting, shall we say, a bit close to home. That scandal is several orders of magnitude worse than the DOJ attorney firings because unlike those attorney positions, the IG is supposed to be totally independent politically, whereas the attorney positions are inherently political as they serve at the pleasure of el Presidente. And the IG was onto something embarrassing to el Presidente's wife. This whole situation has EPIC FAIL written all over it. Oh, if only this cup could pass us by.... - Publius "It ought never to be forgotten, that a firm union of this country, under an efficient government, will probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign powers, and will seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them. Its preservation, therefore ought in no case that can be avoided, to be committed to the guardianship of any but those whose situation will uniformly beget an immediate interest in the faithful and vigilant performance of the trust." [Federalist Papers #59] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/56f880750911181940v35a5a7f4kd6ef2de270a1a...@mail.gmail.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
