Sept. 11 Trial Set to Have More Chaos Than Justice

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-07/sept-11-trial-set-to-have-more-chaos-than-justice.html

U.S. Brigadier General Mark Martins is an honorable man with an impossible job: Convicting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his associates of the Sept. 11 attacks without making it look like a show trial.

The arraignment on May 5 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making. The defendants refused to cooperate or even acknowledge the authority of the court. The prosecution and, for a time, the judge appeared willing to suppress the defense’s efforts to bring up the waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used against some of the defendants. Above all this loomed the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of the tribunal: No one, inside the room or outside, thinks there is any chance that Mohammed will not end up executed.

After nearly a decade of Supreme Court decisions affording rights to Guantanamo detainees and rejecting proposed military commissions to try them, it would be reasonable to ask: How did we get here? Why are we on the brink of a trial of the century that seems unlikely to satisfy the most basic demands of criminal justice?

There is plenty of blame to go around. Part of it lies with Congress, which thwarted President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to close Guantanamo within a year. Part of it lies with the Obama administration, which initially announced its intention to give Mohammed a civilian trial in New York and then reversed itself. We also must not forget the George W. Bush administration, under which Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a month.

[rug]

1. This just about sums it up:

"The Leg: Walid bin Attash, who is accused of training the hijackers, was brought into court in a restraint chair by three guards. As Michelle Shephard, of the Toronto Star, describes it, 'A fourth guard brought in his prosthetic leg separately about a minute later.'”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/the-ten-strangest-things-about-the-911-arraignment.html#ixzz1uHpAscKX

[xchrom]

2. +1

[msanthrope]

5. Interestingly, his lawyer spent her day complaining about what the women on the prosecution were

wearing...

2. The Covered Lawyer: “I’m not suggesting everyone in the room wear what I’m wearing,” bin Attash’s lawyer, Cheryl Bormann, said. She was wearing a black abaya and hijab, and talked about how distracting it would be for the defendants if the women on the prosecution team didn’t dress modestly. According to reporters there, all of those women were dressed perfectly professionally, in skirt suits or military dress.



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/the-ten-strangest-things-about-the-911-arraignment.html#ixzz1uHqdqjEZ

This is not a trial strategy I would have followed.

[msanthrope]

3. That's the dude who then took his shirt off and had his lawyer demand other women not offend him

with their dress....

3. The Shirtless Defendant: Bin Attash, the one-legged defendant, took off his shirt, in order, he said, to show scars on his arms. “No, no, no,” Pohl said. “You will put your shirt on.”



2. The Covered Lawyer: “I’m not suggesting everyone in the room wear what I’m wearing,” bin Attash’s lawyer, Cheryl Bormann, said. She was wearing a black abaya and hijab, and talked about how distracting it would be for the defendants if the women on the prosecution team didn’t dress modestly. According to reporters there, all of those women were dressed perfectly professionally, in skirt suits or military dress.




Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/the-ten-strangest-things-about-the-911-arraignment.html#ixzz1uHqdqjEZ

[whatchamacallit]

4. Why are they bothering to try these guys

when they can simply shoot them in the face and dump them in the sea?

[rug]

6. Why, because we're a nation of laws, of course.

Every prosthetic leg will have its day in court.

[whatchamacallit]

7. Lol!