Guilty Pleas By Gitmo Detainees In Capital Cases

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Terror Trials
Posted on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 09:31:16 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

An interesting paradox is presented by this story:

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial. . . . American military justice law, which is the model for the military commission rules, bars members of the armed services who are facing capital charges from pleading guilty. Partly to assure fairness when execution is possible, court-martial prosecutors are required to prove guilt in a trial even against service members who want to plead guilty.

So by placing people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a military commission system, the Bush Administration (and now by extension, the Obama Administration) has inadvertently forced the issue of torture into the equation. Of course, in civil courts, KSM and others like him could plead guilty (in spite of the torture committed upon them) and the issue of torture would not require the airing military commissions would require. As an ACLU spokesman puts it:

Requiring prosecutors to reveal what they know about detainees and how they know it would cast light both on the interrogation techniques used against the men and the acts of terrorism for which they are facing death, said Denny LeBoeuf, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who works on Guantánamo death penalty issues. “Don’t we have an interest as a society,” Ms. LeBoeuf asked, “in a trial that examines the evidence and provides some reliable picture of what went on?”

I think we do have such an interest. I do not believe putting on a trial when a person wishes to plead guilty is the way to get that information. These detainees should have the right to plead guilty. They have no duty to allow us to inform ourselves about the atrocities committed in our names. Congress can do that. A Truth Commission can do that. The Justice Department can do that. It is not KSM and his fellow terrorists' responsibility to facilitate our own examination of our own monstrous actions.

Whether KSM and his cohorts feel remorse for their crimes against humanity is not for us to judge. They want to plead guilty. No more need be said.

This paradox provides one more reason to eliminate these ill advised and constitutionally questionable military commissions. Why Obama is reluctant to do so is hard to understand.

Speaking for me only

< Saturday Morning Open Thread | Belmont Stakes: Borel Goes For Jockey Triple Crown >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

Guilty Pleas By Gitmo Detainees In Capital Cases | 12 comments (12 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Suicide by (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Jen M on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 10:04:58 AM EST

judicial system?

Is that just?

It is (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 11:37:07 AM EST

justice by kangaroo. The "defendents" have 2 choices:

Plead guilty and die or be indefinitely detained.
Plead not guilty and

let the kangaroos
decide that
you die or are indefinitely detained.
After all, they don't plan to even try you if they can't convict you.

Why do the new Democrats continue this policy? Fear of Republicans, that's why. It once again begs my question: If the Republican Party is so weak, why are the Democrats so afraid of them?

[ Parent ]

: It doesn't help... (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by Dadler on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 12:27:52 PM EST

...that president obama seems to be the biggest fraidy-cat of them all when it comes to taking on republicans. coward.

[ Parent ]

But, if (none / 0) (#3)
by JThomas on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 11:04:11 AM EST

they were in the civil court system, do you think they would plead guilty? I have no way of knowing that but if they could actually get acquitted due to coerced interrogations, would they not think about pleading not guilty and walking away?
Just posing the question..not taking a position.

[ Parent ]

: If they listened to their lawyers (none / 0) (#10)
by Jen M on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 05:53:34 PM EST

They would plead not guilty, they would be fools not to wouldn't they?

[ Parent ]

good question. (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by cpinva on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 02:30:35 PM EST

no, i don't believe (absent some un-coerced evidence to the contrary), that most of these people would plead guilty, in a civil courtroom.

as theresa notes, they're stuck either way, per mr. obama: these are the most dangerous people in the universe, and must be kept close to the chunk of krypton that keeps their evil powers at bay, in a confined space, so capt. america is able to keep watch over them!

for a constitutional lawyer, pres. obama seems quick to just ignore that august document, when it comes to dealing with these detainees.

Does anyone really think that these (5.00 / 2) (#7)
by Anne on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 03:00:35 PM EST

detainees, who have been tortured and subjected to God-knows-what over a long period of time, are even competent to enter any kind of plea?

I'm not discounting whatever crimes these detainees may have committed, but how are we really to be certain any crimes were committed? Because they confessed? Oh, okay - because heaven knows it's just not possible that confessions were coerced through torture, is it?

And now we have a massive game of CYA going on, and since it was so easy to torture, it's now going to be even easier to get rid of the evidence by sentencing these men to death. What a tidy little package, huh?

This is what happens when, without our consent, and with no one willing to stand up and take responsibility for it, in secret memos and with the darkest of hearts, the principles of a judicial system that has served us for over two hundred years are cast aside as if they just didn't matter, and replaced with a nearly unrecognizable, perverted version, all designed to serve the interests and agenda of those drunk on their own power. To keep us "safe," is the mantra, but I feel less and less safe all the time - not from terrorist acts, but from the perversions created at places like Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and black site prisons, and in Congress via the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act and FISA - and with that travesty of an amendment from Lieberman and Graham that I fear will pass - slowly leaching into our own system.

Now, it's all about the cover up.

I think about this when I hear Obama lecture the rest of the world about human rights, when I hear Hillary Clinton tell the Chinese that they need to look back and sort out the human rights abuses in their past. For a while, it was only certain segments of the world's population that had a who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are attitude toward us - but now, can the rest of the world be far behind?

Obama had - maybe still has - the opportunity to really put us back on solid ground, but with each day that passes and he continues the old ways and the old policies, that window is closing.

Bernhard calls it Suicide by Guilty Plea and (5.00 / 2) (#8)
by jawbone on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 03:02:41 PM EST

Perverse "Justice" over at Moon of Alabama. He writes:

The military law forbids death penalties based solely on guilty pleas for two good reasons:
-the guilty plea could be coerced
-the guilty plea could be way for people who are not guilty to commit a form of suicide.

Guilty pleas from hunger-strikers! (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by Jacob Freeze on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 05:31:48 PM EST

No one knows how many of the prisoners in Guantanamo have been driven insane by torture!

Many of them are so miserable that they are trying to terminate their lives with hunger strikes!

And now Obama and Eric Holder want to accept their guilty pleas for capital crimes and Big Tent Democrat says...

They want to plead guilty. No more need be said.

No more needs to be said!

I can't agree.

I think there's something else that needs to be said to Barack Obama, and Eric Holder, and Big Tent Democrat, and the entire Democratic Party...

Leche!

Well (5.00 / 2) (#11)
by cawaltz on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 06:20:22 PM EST

I'm sure this is somehow going to be utilized to correct that pesky problem they seem to have with those pesky detainees that their country of origin refuse to take and pose the threat of being "too dangerous" to be integrated and allowed to enter the US.

Anyone who has had any experience with the military system would be leary of the a military tribunal. My husband had an Admin board at Camp Pendleton. The lawyer there said my husband was the first case he "won". The reason why he won? I was a civilian at the time with enough knowledge of the system. The kangaroo court the CO was planning on using was dismissed after I contacted the Admiral in charge of the Pacific theater(after my husband got blown off by the CO's immediate supervisor) and mentioned I was not averse to using the legal system if the board was partial. For the record, my husband won an Article 138 against this CO and he was relieved of his command. Not before he put our family through literally months of hell. The system the military uses is set up to be adversarial. You rarely get the benefit of innocence until proven guilty. I doubt that a tribunal set up by the military would be any different.

Good point (none / 0) (#1)
by No Blood for Hubris on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 09:56:48 AM EST

I would not have seen it that way, until you explained it.

Thanks.

As I recall, in California, a criminal (none / 0) (#12)
by oculus on Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 08:04:32 PM EST

defendant charged in state court may not plead guilty and ask for the death penalty. link