Category: Justice

Gitmo Releases

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The US has sent 4 Uighur held at our gulag to Bermuda, which really pissed off the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, because, while they have home rule, they are supposed to consult with London over such things.

It sounds like the US threatened banking sanctions over their tax haven status, and the Bermudan government asked, “how high”.

Additionally, Mohammed El Gharani was freed, the Federal courts determined that there was no credible evidence against him, and in any case, he was 14 years old when captured (he is now 21) which should have meant that he was treated as an abused child, not tortured.

It Must Be Nice to Live in a Place Where There are Civil Rights

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Like the UK, where the nation’s highest court, the Law Lords, have rejected the use of secret evidence in trials:

Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords, ruled against the government on Wednesday in a sensitive case involving the use of secret evidence to justify imposing home curfews on terrorism suspects.

Nine law lords unanimously upheld an appeal by three men who argued it was against their human rights to be subject to control orders, a form of house arrest, based on secret evidence they are not privy to and cannot challenge in court.

“A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him,” wrote Nicholas Phillips, Britain’s most senior law lord, in issuing the lengthy judgment.

(emphasis mine)

Of course, in the good old USA, we’re moving to a new and improved military commissions system here, for whom an unfair trial is a feature, not a bug.

Terrorists Running Wild in Big Apple

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Because, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was transferred from Guantánamo Bay to New York Cityto face trial on the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassy.

Oh, my god, a terrorist is running loose on the streets of the city….Only, he isn’t. He’s at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where other people who were tried and convicted of the same crime where held.

Why is Barack Obama letting the ‘Phants demagogue this issue?

Leon Panetta Says that We Intend to Keep Torturing

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So, Barack Obama and His Evil Minions,™ are still arguing in court that there is no crime by Bush Cheney that they will not cover up:

The forced disclosure of such material to the American Civil Liberties Union “could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed,” Panetta argued.

….

The “disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations” would provide al-Qaeda “with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds,” Panetta said, describing the information at issue as “ready-made ammunition.” He also submitted a classified statement to the court that he said explains why detainees could use the contents to evade questions in the future, even though Obama has promised that the United States will not use the harsh interrogation techniques again.

(emphasis mine)

If you aren’t torturing any more, the information is no longer sensitive.

I cannot see any reason to make this argument unless the Gulags are still in place, and they intend to keep using them, or are still using them.

The Conservative Wing of the Supreme Court Supports Bribery

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In a 5-4 decision, with Justice Kennedy being the swing vote, the Supreme Court ruled that state and local judges receiving huge campaign donations from political interest groups must recuse themselves:

Judges must disqualify themselves in some cases involving their top campaign contributors, the U.S. Supreme Court said, ruling for the first time that judicial elections can create a risk of bias that violates the Constitution.

The case, Caperton v. Massey, involves a fraud case against Massey Energy, in which a jury awarded $50 million to the small coal companies that they drove out of business.

Massey’s CEO, Don L. Blankenship then spent $3 million to defeat a state supreme court justice, and replace him with a more pliable fellow, one Brent Benjamin, who then refused to recuse himself.

Of interest here is that Blankenship only donated $1000 to Benjamin’s campaign, the rest he independently spent on ads against the incumbent, Warren McGraw, so this does not just apply to campaign donations, but independent expenditures too, at least in a case where the donations are “extraordinary” and “extreme”.

In this case, the donations were so outrageous that John Grisham made a novel out of them.

Of course $3 million for a state supreme court justice in West Virginia fits that bill, it probably would in California too, but for a local Justice of the Peace position, that number would be much lower, probably sub 6 figures, and the courts now have to hash that out.

Of course the simple solution for any is recusal, which would be done when there is the mere appearance of impropriety.

Unsurprisingly, Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas came out in favor of corruption.

Governor Mark Sanford (R) Gets Served

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Both figuratively and literally, as the South Carolina Supreme Court just voted 5-0 to order the governor to apply for stimulus money, and served him a writ of mandamus, which is basically an order, so if he doesn’t, they can throw his ass in jail.

He had refused to spend the money on education, and the legislature overruled him, but Sanford, continued to maintain that only he had the authority to request the money.

Basically, this is about a Presidential run in 2012, and he is appealing to the ever shrinking Republican Party base.

Political Prosecution Against Cyril Wecht to be Dropped

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This was a case of a blatantly political US literally making a federal case out of things like using the office fax machine, and now, because most of the evidence has been excluded, political hack Mary Beth Buchanan has been forced to drop the case.

I know that Barack Obama does not want to dismiss US attorneys until he has replacements, but Buchanan is a cancer on the Department of Justice.

Background here.

Pakistani Supreme Court Rules that Nawaz Sharif Can Hold Office

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He had been banned from office by the Supreme Court some months ago, on the basis of the trumped up charges that Musharraf charged him with post coup, but since then, the Musharraf appointed chief justice has been replaced by Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been removed by the general, and whose whose reinstatement was the subject of massive protests, ruled that the charges in question were bogus.

There should be no short term political impact, but it is clear that Sharif is more popular than the current president, Asif Ali Zardari, who is seen as both ineffective and remarkably corrupt even by the standards of Pakistani politics, and it is likely that he would win when an election is held.

Sotomayor for Scotus

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Obama has chosen Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court.

I don’t have enough legal knowledge to know her qualities as a jurist, but from what I’ve read, notwithstanding some “what about some white guys whining” from TNR, is that she is a first rate legal mind and is qualified for the court.

I have some concerns:

  • I believe that some of the members of the supreme court should come from some other walk of life than federal judge. Until 20-30 years ago, that was the case, with justices being governors (Earl Warren), William O. Douglas (SEC Chairman), Felix Frankfurter (Academic and Solicitor General), Hugo Black (Senator), Robert H. Jackson (Attorney General), Thurgood Marshall (Chief Council of the NAACP), etc.
  • Her age and health. At 54, she is a bit older than Republican nominees, and she is a type I diabetic, which likely shaves a decade off her life expectancy.

I think that getting some non-judges on the court, and getting some younger appointees, would be a very good thing for the Dems.

Additionally, I think that the Ivys are overrepresented on the court, but Barack Obama, Harvard Law, is not likely to be the guy who does this.

Heck of a Terrorist Plot You’ve Got There

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You know, those highly trained terrorists who were planting bombs.

You know, the ringleader, David Cromitie, who admitted to being stoned while planting what he thought were bombs.

And you have the full rundown of the “Newburgh 4”, which includes a cocaine addict, a schizophrenic who is borderline retarded, and the government informant, was facing deportation for what amounts to forging immigration documents, who ran a similar sting a few years back, allegedly attempted to pay another member of his mosque to join his merry band, and was described by independent observers as “the boss.”

I have no doubt that they will be convicted, that’s what happened to the folks down in Florida, but this does nothing for anyone, except perhaps the police and prosecutors who use unreliable informants for career climbing.

Martha Coakley Must Have Pictures of Them Doing an Underage Goat

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Because that’s about the only way that I can see that the Massachusetts Attorney General managed to pry $60 million from Goldman Sachs for engaging in deceptive loan and loan securitization processes.

$50 million dollars to the home owners, and $10m in fines to the state, which will reduce principal on, “first mortgages by 25-35% and second mortgages by 50% or more.”

Yes, I know, it’s a typical “no wrongdoing admitted” deal, but she had to have found an awfully big club to use on them.

I wonder what it was.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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It’s by Lanny Davis, a Washington, DC insider, and the guy who accused people supporting Ned Lamont in 2006 against Joe Lieberman of “Liberal McCarthyism“, and he is calling for the criminal prosecution of Dick Cheney for authorizing torture:

I have agreed with President Obama on the need to look forward, not backward.

But … I have changed my mind about the need to indict former Vice President Dick Cheney for complicity in illegal torture.

…

Even more, they seem to be an in-your-face dare by Mr. Cheney to the U.S. criminal justice system: “I am Dick Cheney, I approved violations of the law in the name of the war on terror, and what are you going to do about it?”

It reminds me of Gary Hart’s reaction in the early days of his 1988 presidential campaign to the rumors of his womanizing. …..

So as to Mr. Cheney: I think it is time to take him up on his implicit dare and indict him for violating the 1994 federal law against torture.

This is as big a Beltway Blowhard™ as they come, and he called for Dick Cheney to be prosecuted, and got it published in the Moonie Times (Link is to The Hill, which republished it.

I don’t think that he is suggesting this out of any real moral imperative, it’s just that he feels that Dick Cheney is, to paraphrase Bull Durham, “Calling the umpire a called the guy a c$#@sucker,” which offends his genteel Beltway sensibilities.

Lying Two Faced Rat Bastard!

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I have a joke for you:
Q:What’s the difference between Barack Obama and Dick Cheney?
A: I have no damn clue, because Barack Obama is restarting the military tribunals:

Military Tribunals Will Resume, Obama Says

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 15, 2009 1:55 PM

President Obama said today he will revive military commissions but with greater legal safeguards for defendants to try some terrorist suspects held at the military base in Cuba.

The decision, which follows an intense internal debate, represents something of a reversal by the president who said during the campaign that military courts martial or the federal courts offered a better route to successful prosecution because he said military commissions had been an “enormous failure.”

In recent weeks, however, the administration appears to have bowed to fears articulated by the Pentagon that bringing some detainees before regular courts presented enormous legal hurdles and could risk acquittals.

Risk acquittals? You are doing this because of a Risk of Acquittals?

That’s the F$#@ING POINT OF A F$#@ING TRIAL, YOU F$#@ING ILL CONCEIVED F$#@ING SON OF A F$#@ING WOMBAT!

If you don’t have a “risk of acquittal”, it’s a F$#@ING show trial. So you are pre-announcing that the military commissions are a fraud, because, you don’t want to “risk acquittals”

He’s claiming that they will be fairer than the commissions that Bush came up with, because….Because, He’s Barack Obama, and he’s just so F$#@ING awesome.

Wrong! We are the United States of America, our whole system of government is about not relying on our leaders being, “so F$#@ING awesome,” it’s about the F$#@ING rule of F$#@ING law.

I don’t care how F$#@ING awsome you F$#@ING think you are, that’s not how Americans do things.

That weren’t bad enough you also have this:

The administration is still grappling with how to handle the cases of detainees that are deemed too dangerous to release, but that some in the Pentagon fear cannot be prosecuted in any legal forum. That could lead to the creation of a system of indefinite detention without charge backed by some form of regular court review.

Well, there’s another wonderful bit of accepting who we are as a nation: If there is anything that defines American jurisprudence, and the things that our founding fathers, commie pinkos like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, it was that they found the very idea that someone could use the state could detain someone forever without any recourse to legal process to be an anathema.

It’s wrong, it’s stupid, and it’s un-American.

Glenn Greenwald, who is far kinder than I am, or perhaps more well spoken (better writer is a given), calls this “Obama’s kinder, gentler military commissions.” He quotes many people who are now serving in the Obama administration, as well as President Obama when he was candidate Obama, noting that the problem is not just that the processes were wrong, but that the entire idea of a special court with special procedures is wrong.

What is most pernicious, quoting a letter in response to Greenwald’s article is this:

The other aspect of it, and you hinted at this the other day, is this: Under Bush, half the country was trained to recite all sorts of dangerous propositions about how important it is to vest The President with all sorts of powers to keep us safe, how vital it is that he keep things secret to protect us from the Terrorists, how we can trust in our leaders to exercise in ways we don’t understand because we know he’s good at heart.

And now, with Obama, a significant portion of the other half of the country is being trained to recite the same things.

Once again proving that almost any person on the Internet can write, and think, more clearly than I can.

And then there’s what Digby said:

By the way, I have to wonder why it’s taken centuries to come up with the civilian and military justice systems? Apparently, creating a new one is piece of cake. Why all the sturm and drang with appellate court challenges and legislation? Just put it in a presidential memo and carry on.

What has been announced today is disgraceful.

Terrorist Training Camp Found in Imperial, California

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It appears that the Explorer Scouts are training their members in weapons use and military tactics.

OK, they are not. It’s training for law enforcement, and to my mind, probably very bad training for law enforcement, because, with its emphasis on military style assaults for for things like simulated bus hijackings, it contributes to an increasingly militarized mind set for what should be peace officers.

Additionally, if this were not run by the Explorer Scouts, a Co-Ed division of the Boy Scouts, but instead by the Islamic Community Center of Imperial California (Where the story is reported from), how long would before an ambitious prosecutor would charge them all with running a “terrorist training camp.”

What’s more, he would probably win the case.