Why are they mentioning military trials? I thought the SCOTUS squashed anyone being tried by the military other than the military.
As for the concerns, NO SHIT! That's scarier than all get out. I've got no issue with holding terrorism suspects and what most in the msm deem torture (women's asses in thongs, loud music, barking dogs) but barring access to evidence, barring access to trials are not needed. I personally have no problems with holding terror suspects until hostilities are over. Several high-level targets are known to have had more dirt turned up since we found documents linking them, that weren't originally known when they were caught. I understand you can tack-on charges but most Americans would tell you that's you're "fishing" for something by that time.
"Speedy tirals" - yeah terrorists deserve 'em but somebody arrested in the states for a 'civil crime' waits months for a trial due to courts pushing it back and we still call that 'speedy'...That's pretty funny.
I don't trust anything that says "likely". Either it does or it doesn't, get your ass off the fence, so called legal experts. Your entire careers are based on finding loopholes in common-sense air-tight laws. This is just like those.
Hearsay as in what? I heard someone say this but don't have proof could be admissable under certain rules in US trials. I heard someone say that someone say that someone say that someone is not admissible. What are they deeming hearsay? He said she said or a chain of people claiming someone said something to their aunt's mother's cousin's hairdresser's boyfriend's kid?
Oh I see, if I have comments I'm to "get a life" or "go back to school". What's wrong, can't address the actual comment? Need to make your pitiful life seem bigger by questioning my education or understanding? I understand perfectly fine, thanks. You just don't seem to get I don't buy your line of bullshit.
Mark Adams, the high and mighty, hypocritical, bloviator. (mail) (www):
Rhianna:
Ok, fair enough. I'll start from the beginning, but I don't promise an exhaustive recitation of your displayed ignorance. I'm sure I'll only touch on the high points.
1.) SCOTUS did not "squash" military tribunals for non-military personell. If you read Hamden, or any detailed explaination of the case, you would have known that. The cliff-notes version is that POTUS couldn't use said tribunals, or any other special procedure other than the normal judicial process (as contemplated by Geneva III) without a congressionally approved framework. He is free to do exactly what he had tried initially if he can get Congress to authorize it. By the way, subpoenas are "quashed" not "squashed." Potatoes are "squashed." The verb you were looking for is denied.
The Code of Military Justice is something Congress wrote, as it did the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It has yet to write the Rules of Indefinitely Detained Captives of the Global War on Terror. Following legal procedures is what protects our liberty. Following the law is our primary security from government abuse. POTUS tried to write his own laws when it came to Gitmo, which isn't his job.
2.) "Speedy tirals" [sic] and "civil crime" are just absurd uses of the language. There is no such thing in anglo-american jurisprudence as a "civil crime." Either something is civil or it is criminal. A violation of the Code of Military Justice is still a "crime," as are War Crimes. Civil and criminal are mutually exclusive concepts and have completely different rules of evidence, discovery and burdens of proof.
Speedy trial rules are only applicable to criminal procedure. There is no guarantee of a speedy resolution to your personal injury case (for example), although statutes of limitation, the time within which such a case must be brought are strictly enforced in both types of proceedings. There are quasi-criminal proceedings that are used in administrative actions, like tax court or the court of claims, but not courts of law where jail time is metered out. If you really want to get deep into this subject, look up the difference between civil and criminal contempt. Very confusing, but informative.
I'll give you the typo on "trials" but will point out that many a criminal case has been dismissed due to a prosecutor's violation of the defendant's Constitutionally mandated right to answer charges within a reasonable time period. Speedy trial rules vary by jurisdiction and are different than Statutes of Limitation in that the clock begins not when the crime is committed, but when the arrest ocurrs and cover the time period between the issuance of the indictment or filing of the charges until the trial actually starts and jeapardy attaches. It also varies depending on whether the defendant is incarcerated or not. Speedy trial rules are extended when the defendant is out on bail -- days literally become weeks.
Requests for delays (continuances) are granted for a variety of reasons, most often for a conflict in lawyer's schedules. But if a defendant has not previously waived his/her right to a speedy trial, a prosecutor seldom even asks, let alone is granted a continuance.
They exist to prevent people from being held in jail for an unreasonable amount of time without a hearing. It's to prevent a prosecutor from putting enemies (political or otherwise) under arrest for no reason. The idea is "put up or shut up."
Often, very often as a matter of course, defense lawyers will waive this right in order to have enough time to mount a credible defense. But this right must be affirmatively waived -- with the explicit consent of the defendant. Under the laws of all civilized nations either a detained person is chargeable for a crime -- in which case (in our country) the protection for the rights of the accused allowed even the most heinous child rapist/murder should apply -- or the person is a Prisoner of War, subject to the Geneva Conventions. Hamden reaffirmed this notion.
3.) Now that we've turned Afghanistan over to NATO, does that mean that "hostilities are over?" I didn't think so. Just when are we going to be able to tell when our War on Metaphors and Emotions is over? The Taliban is gone and a working, sovereign government is in charge in Afghanistan. You could even make that argument for Iraq, although claiming that hostilities (at least our part in them) are over is pushing it. (Please disregard that Mission Accomplished banner.) We do not need to ignore our own legal system which were no small reason why we defeated the likes of Hitler and the USSR. The superiority of our system, our honorable way of dealing even with the most despicable, should be more than enough to defeat the likes of the cave-dwellers who took down the twin towers.
Conquering all one billion muslims, however, would take a different kind of barbarism than Americans usually display -- thank goodness. The oft quoted, and inaccurate sophistry that democracies don't make war on each other is because the idea of conguest, genocide and world dominiation is anathama to liberal western democratic traditions. If you're one of those who decry our lack of backbone necessary to commit to all out war, you, not I, are the one who hates America because you wish we were something we never were.
Militarily we have done everything we're going to do in Afghanistan, except provide bodyguard services for the Kabul government under the orders of the commanders in Brussels. Waiting until the War on Terror is "over" is tantamount to life in prison without hope for parole -- something neither Geneva or our Constitution contemplates. Something you yourself object to -- barring access to the courts -- but in the same sentence say you have no problem keeping them locked up forever by the simple expedient of rationalizing away the nature of this conflict without forseeable end.
And whether or not you have a problem with humiliating prisoners, whatever you may call them, let alone waterboarding, sleep and nourishment deprivation, or outright physical torture, is not really an issue. The law doesn't care if you or George Bush is "cool" with this dishonorable behavior because the law, both under Geneva and the US Code, deem such actions war crimes.
Why do you think these folks were never taken into the US proper and are kept throughout the world, many in undisclosed "black" prisons? The administration sought a legal no-man's-land where neither Geneva or our laws could reach, hence the new and improved, Haliburton constructed, Gitmo -- about to be filled with prisoners next week.
Saying you think it's wrong to keep these people from the courts, yet endorsing their indefinite incarceration until "hostilities are over," is turning logic on its head. The Post has a nice little synopsis that'll tell you why the scramble is now on to give everybody from POTUS to Lyndie England a get-out-of-jail-free card.
4.) "Likely" Any legal professional that would contemplate a the result of a case of first impression, one that has never been heard before, and prognosticate that s/he knows the outcome with an absolute certainty -- that the case is a "slam dunk" -- is speaking irresponsibly and unprofessionally.
When a surgeon states that is is "likely" that removing the puss from your brain will stop your headaches, s/he is speaking within a realm of "reasonable" professional certainty." There are never any guarantees. If a plumber says a fixed valve "should" hold or "is guaranteed" to hold -- once it starts leaking they have to come back and fix it either way. Saying something is a "slam dunk" pisses people off when you're wrong.
5. The hearsay rule is actually a rule of exceptions. There are approximately 16 statutory and 30 some common law exceptions to the heresay rule. You will spend approximately 10 weeks in evidence class studying these exceptions and committing them to memory -- and still you won't have mastered it, even if you get an "A+". Nothing against your study skills, but people have gotten PhD's in just this rule alone.
This post is already long enough, and I have yet to really begin your education. So when I tell you to go back to school, I mean that much of what you said and continue to say is so wrong, for so many reasons, that to attempt to correct your obvious lack of understanding of these complex issues are nearly impossible in a simple blog post.
As for the concerns, NO SHIT! That's scarier than all get out. I've got no issue with holding terrorism suspects and what most in the msm deem torture (women's asses in thongs, loud music, barking dogs) but barring access to evidence, barring access to trials are not needed. I personally have no problems with holding terror suspects until hostilities are over. Several high-level targets are known to have had more dirt turned up since we found documents linking them, that weren't originally known when they were caught. I understand you can tack-on charges but most Americans would tell you that's you're "fishing" for something by that time.
"Speedy tirals" - yeah terrorists deserve 'em but somebody arrested in the states for a 'civil crime' waits months for a trial due to courts pushing it back and we still call that 'speedy'...That's pretty funny.
I don't trust anything that says "likely". Either it does or it doesn't, get your ass off the fence, so called legal experts. Your entire careers are based on finding loopholes in common-sense air-tight laws. This is just like those.
Hearsay as in what? I heard someone say this but don't have proof could be admissable under certain rules in US trials. I heard someone say that someone say that someone say that someone is not admissible. What are they deeming hearsay? He said she said or a chain of people claiming someone said something to their aunt's mother's cousin's hairdresser's boyfriend's kid?
Please, please please go back to school.
Ok, fair enough. I'll start from the beginning, but I don't promise an exhaustive recitation of your displayed ignorance. I'm sure I'll only touch on the high points.
1.) SCOTUS did not "squash" military tribunals for non-military personell. If you read Hamden, or any detailed explaination of the case, you would have known that. The cliff-notes version is that POTUS couldn't use said tribunals, or any other special procedure other than the normal judicial process (as contemplated by Geneva III) without a congressionally approved framework. He is free to do exactly what he had tried initially if he can get Congress to authorize it. By the way, subpoenas are "quashed" not "squashed." Potatoes are "squashed." The verb you were looking for is denied.
The Code of Military Justice is something Congress wrote, as it did the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It has yet to write the Rules of Indefinitely Detained Captives of the Global War on Terror. Following legal procedures is what protects our liberty. Following the law is our primary security from government abuse. POTUS tried to write his own laws when it came to Gitmo, which isn't his job.
2.) "Speedy tirals" [sic] and "civil crime" are just absurd uses of the language. There is no such thing in anglo-american jurisprudence as a "civil crime." Either something is civil or it is criminal. A violation of the Code of Military Justice is still a "crime," as are War Crimes. Civil and criminal are mutually exclusive concepts and have completely different rules of evidence, discovery and burdens of proof.
Speedy trial rules are only applicable to criminal procedure. There is no guarantee of a speedy resolution to your personal injury case (for example), although statutes of limitation, the time within which such a case must be brought are strictly enforced in both types of proceedings. There are quasi-criminal proceedings that are used in administrative actions, like tax court or the court of claims, but not courts of law where jail time is metered out. If you really want to get deep into this subject, look up the difference between civil and criminal contempt. Very confusing, but informative.
I'll give you the typo on "trials" but will point out that many a criminal case has been dismissed due to a prosecutor's violation of the defendant's Constitutionally mandated right to answer charges within a reasonable time period. Speedy trial rules vary by jurisdiction and are different than Statutes of Limitation in that the clock begins not when the crime is committed, but when the arrest ocurrs and cover the time period between the issuance of the indictment or filing of the charges until the trial actually starts and jeapardy attaches. It also varies depending on whether the defendant is incarcerated or not. Speedy trial rules are extended when the defendant is out on bail -- days literally become weeks.
Requests for delays (continuances) are granted for a variety of reasons, most often for a conflict in lawyer's schedules. But if a defendant has not previously waived his/her right to a speedy trial, a prosecutor seldom even asks, let alone is granted a continuance.
They exist to prevent people from being held in jail for an unreasonable amount of time without a hearing. It's to prevent a prosecutor from putting enemies (political or otherwise) under arrest for no reason. The idea is "put up or shut up."
Often, very often as a matter of course, defense lawyers will waive this right in order to have enough time to mount a credible defense. But this right must be affirmatively waived -- with the explicit consent of the defendant. Under the laws of all civilized nations either a detained person is chargeable for a crime -- in which case (in our country) the protection for the rights of the accused allowed even the most heinous child rapist/murder should apply -- or the person is a Prisoner of War, subject to the Geneva Conventions. Hamden reaffirmed this notion.
3.) Now that we've turned Afghanistan over to NATO, does that mean that "hostilities are over?" I didn't think so. Just when are we going to be able to tell when our War on Metaphors and Emotions is over? The Taliban is gone and a working, sovereign government is in charge in Afghanistan. You could even make that argument for Iraq, although claiming that hostilities (at least our part in them) are over is pushing it. (Please disregard that Mission Accomplished banner.) We do not need to ignore our own legal system which were no small reason why we defeated the likes of Hitler and the USSR. The superiority of our system, our honorable way of dealing even with the most despicable, should be more than enough to defeat the likes of the cave-dwellers who took down the twin towers.
Conquering all one billion muslims, however, would take a different kind of barbarism than Americans usually display -- thank goodness. The oft quoted, and inaccurate sophistry that democracies don't make war on each other is because the idea of conguest, genocide and world dominiation is anathama to liberal western democratic traditions. If you're one of those who decry our lack of backbone necessary to commit to all out war, you, not I, are the one who hates America because you wish we were something we never were.
Militarily we have done everything we're going to do in Afghanistan, except provide bodyguard services for the Kabul government under the orders of the commanders in Brussels. Waiting until the War on Terror is "over" is tantamount to life in prison without hope for parole -- something neither Geneva or our Constitution contemplates. Something you yourself object to -- barring access to the courts -- but in the same sentence say you have no problem keeping them locked up forever by the simple expedient of rationalizing away the nature of this conflict without forseeable end.
And whether or not you have a problem with humiliating prisoners, whatever you may call them, let alone waterboarding, sleep and nourishment deprivation, or outright physical torture, is not really an issue. The law doesn't care if you or George Bush is "cool" with this dishonorable behavior because the law, both under Geneva and the US Code, deem such actions war crimes.
Why do you think these folks were never taken into the US proper and are kept throughout the world, many in undisclosed "black" prisons? The administration sought a legal no-man's-land where neither Geneva or our laws could reach, hence the new and improved, Haliburton constructed, Gitmo -- about to be filled with prisoners next week.
Saying you think it's wrong to keep these people from the courts, yet endorsing their indefinite incarceration until "hostilities are over," is turning logic on its head. The Post has a nice little synopsis that'll tell you why the scramble is now on to give everybody from POTUS to Lyndie England a get-out-of-jail-free card.
4.) "Likely" Any legal professional that would contemplate a the result of a case of first impression, one that has never been heard before, and prognosticate that s/he knows the outcome with an absolute certainty -- that the case is a "slam dunk" -- is speaking irresponsibly and unprofessionally.
When a surgeon states that is is "likely" that removing the puss from your brain will stop your headaches, s/he is speaking within a realm of "reasonable" professional certainty." There are never any guarantees. If a plumber says a fixed valve "should" hold or "is guaranteed" to hold -- once it starts leaking they have to come back and fix it either way. Saying something is a "slam dunk" pisses people off when you're wrong.
5. The hearsay rule is actually a rule of exceptions. There are approximately 16 statutory and 30 some common law exceptions to the heresay rule. You will spend approximately 10 weeks in evidence class studying these exceptions and committing them to memory -- and still you won't have mastered it, even if you get an "A+". Nothing against your study skills, but people have gotten PhD's in just this rule alone.
This post is already long enough, and I have yet to really begin your education. So when I tell you to go back to school, I mean that much of what you said and continue to say is so wrong, for so many reasons, that to attempt to correct your obvious lack of understanding of these complex issues are nearly impossible in a simple blog post.