The title of §948c is “Persons subject to military commissions”. My knowledge of law is limited to one summer course, but it seems to me that any person not listed in this section is not subject to military commissions.
Also, SEC 3 says that the President “is authorized to establish military commissions for the trial of alien unlawful enemy combatants”. Since, as far as I know, the President has no authority he’s not explicitly given, one would have to produce a law that gives him the authority to establish military commissions for the trial of unlawful enemy combatants who are US citizens, for him to have that authority.
How do you know we do not have equal outrage regarding the current state of the criminal justice system as it pertains to indigent citizens?
How do you know that we haven’t done what was in our limited power to effect change in our current criminal justice system wrt to alleged injustices to indigent citizens, but our hands are simply tied because (a) no one is listening hard enough to get them to do anything to change it and/or (b) it’s pretty damn difficult to fix now that it’s etched so deeply into 50 years of law, which, by the way is a damn good reason to be even more outraged about this new legislation now, rather than waiting until 50 years from now, when some jackass on a message board asks us why we haven’t been mad for all of the last 50 years.
How do you know whether we were aware of the similar aparent injustices in our current judicial system, and that now that you make us aware, maybe we are just as outraged about that as we are this?
Where do you get off presuming that if we’re not angry about one set of circumstances, that we can’t, therefore, be angry about a different but similar set of circumstances?
What makes you think there aren’t legitimate reasons to have far greater concern about the application of this latest legislation that don’t rise to the same level for our current criminal justice system? Such as:
The checks and balances in place that don’t appear to be present in this legislation.
The fact that our current system allows for precisely what this has just eliminated.
The fact that one might not have a fear that a rogue governor will start a “War on Indigents” and start rounding up indigent citizens on trumped up charges (or none at all – at least not that they can be made aware of), creating special prisons just to hold them, put many of them in foreign countries, keep them secret from the rest of the citizenry, and enforce it amongst indigent citizens across all 50 states or whatever nation they might be living (on the streets) in, for an indefinite period unto eternity.
The fact that one might not fear that, even if the current laws as they might affect indigent citizens are equally outrageous, that they are at all fucking likely to incite indigents across the nation (or globe) to rise up in anger, take up arms and turn it into a real war where people are, you know, dying and stuff. Those are just some of the reasons I can think of. I’m sure if you tried real hard you could imagine some more, too. Just because you’re too intellectually lazy to do so on your own, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
You can’t think of any, you must ask me? Well, then, surely I am on shaky ground if you can’t think of any!
How about questions of the competence of the sworn statement? As, for instance, the cases of detainees brought in for reward.
“Here is Achmed Poorshmuck, big time Al Queda Taliban honcho. Where be the Benjamins?”
“Sure thing! Just sign this sworn statement that Achmed here is AlQ T…”
Surely this would not be sufficient to qualify in a sane world? Just as surely, a sworn statement by the “arresting officer” would be no more worthy, if it were based on nothing else? Unless captured, armed, on the battlefield, what other evidence could there be but hearsay.
And confession. Mustn’t forget about confession, spontaneous and uncoerced bean spilling.
And this just off the top of my head. Legal beagle like yourself, you could probably come up with a couple dozen. If you wanted to. But you don’t know, and I don’t know, and they damned sure betcha ain’t about to tell us. National security, doncha know?
Not sure what you mean here, but generally speaking statements by police officers must be enough to detain a suspect, right? If a police officer sees a guy beating the shit out of someone and the victim gets up and runs away after the officer has subdued the suspect, surely the officer must be able to detain that person based on what he saw? And if so, how would the rest of the world know what happened if not by the officer’s statement?
Based on an assumption. If Achmed Poorshmuck is dragged before an Army officer and turned over, I’m assuming that he would be the “swearing guy” (Deponent? Component? Dunno…). Or it would be the next officer that he passes Poorshmuck to. Either way, the deponent has no direct knowledge, since he is relying on the testimony of others. Persons whose reliability may well be suspect.
If the swearing officer himself, personally, captured the detainee on the actual battlefield, armed and belligerent, then he must, to some degree or another, be relying on hearsay, no?
The problem, again and still, is the point in the process at which this probable cause is demonstrated, and whether a detainee is guaranteed to reach that point in a finite amount of time.
*§948q. Charges and specifications
(a) Charges and Specifications.–Charges and specifications against an accused in a military commission under this chapter shall be signed by a person subject to chapter 47 of this title under oath…*
So we’re talking about a detainee who has been charged.
Just want to clarify that.
You see, I find that quite satisfactory: the cop has to demonstrate probable cause to a judge to detain me.
Needless to say, if we scoop up some guy in South Waziristan on the say-so of his brother-in-law who hates his guts - his captor doesn’t have to do the same. And I’m aware that it might be tough to get probable cause right away, or even within a few weeks. But a requirement of the production of some sort of reasonable - I won’t even expect probable, just something a bit more solid than one or two guys holding a grudge - cause within a reasonable time period (John Mace’s six months might be about right) would IMHO justify holding the potential terrorist for what might well be years as, first, evidence is gathered to verify the particular charges of an indictment, and second, as both sides prepare for trial.
Bricker – you have far more questions coming at you than you can handle, but may a lurker request that you address the worthwhile ones first? I believe you are acquitting yourself well in this thread, but you are responding to **RTFirefly ** and 'luci (and thus encouraging yet more witlessness) at the expense of people like Hamlet and Kaylasdad.
What’s your take on the length of detention? How long does this legislation allow the detainee to be held without a hearing? We can come back to the question of how fair those hearings are set up to be later.
