Criminally stupid

Matthew Hoy
By Matthew Hoy on November 13, 2009

Earlier this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would be bringing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other co-conspirators to New York to stand trial in civilian court for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. To say this decision is stupid gives it far too much credit. I give you former Attorney General Michael Mukasey who, as a judge, oversaw the trial of the so-called “blind sheik” in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Speaking at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention, Mukasey described the move, as “a decision I consider not only unwise, but based on a refusal to face the fact that what we are involved with here is a war with people who follow a religiously-based ideology that calls on them to kill us, and to return instead to the mindset that prevailed before Sept. 11 that acts like the first World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.”

Describing a pattern of decisions made since the the Obama administration pledged in January to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, Mukasey said that, "What’s followed has seemed in many instances to be a system in which policy is fashioned to fit and proceed rhetoric rather than being thought out in advance with arguments then formulated in support of it.”

He noted that Congress already authorized the trial of detainees through military commissions, and that those trials would have already been underway.

“Now, that procedure is to be short-circuited -- actually, long-circuited would be more accurate -- so that they could be brought to this country and tried in a civilian court," he said. "We should all be aware that those cases which were scheduled to have already begun now have to start from scratch.”

Not only that, but think about all of the protections accorded civilians arrested in the normal course of a criminal investigation here in the U.S. that will now be extended to a foreign national waging war against this country. Chain of custody for physical evidence? What about eyewitnesses who may have been killed during the waging of the war on terror?

And let us ponder for a moment what mischief defense attorneys will cause. Imagine the motions for suppression of evidence and calls for dismissal of all charges based upon waterboarding that was done in an effort to halt further attacks. Considering what happens occasionally in regular criminal trials that results in the dismissal of all charges against a defendant because the government crossed some constitutional lines previously only applied to U.S. citizens or even just residents.

It is not a stretch to imagine the possibility that some judge would set KSM free because he was subject to harsh interrogation techniques.

There is too high a likelihood that this decision will not result in the end that Americans will demand – the execution of KSM and his co-conspirators. Unfortunately, this process is sure to take so much time that there is a distinct possibility that President Barack Obama will no longer be in office when this process comes to its end.

If you thought the O.J. Simpson case was a circus, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

0 comments on “Criminally stupid”

  1. "It is not a stretch to imagine the possibility that some judge would set KSM free because he was subject to harsh interrogation techniques."

    Yes it is. Where we you when they convicted that bald idiot on the grounds that he knew about 9/11 and didn't do his patriotic duty to inform the US ? Surely this would be an indicator.

    If you think that a trial of KSM in NYC for the second attack he planned on the WTC is going to hinge on any piece of evidence relating to what happened after he went on TV confessing to being the planner, you're describing yourself with this post title.

  2. I assume by "bald idiot" you're referring to Zacarious Moussoui, the "20th hijacker." Sadly you demonstrate your own ignorance in your comment. He wasn't convicted because he didn't do his "patriotic duty" -- he was a foreign agent captured on American soil and convicted of conspiracy to commit mass murder, not failure to report a potential crime.

    If you think that KSM's lawyers aren't going to point to his capture overseas, his time spent being interrogated at a CIA black site and Gitmo as evidence of a coerced, false confession then you're a moron.

    If you think that there haven't been judges in this country who have thrown out charges against people based upon "prosecutorial misconduct" -- which one could easily see these harsh interrogation techniques qualifying for -- then you're ignorant.

  3. The fact that there are idiots like Phil out there who are willing to diminish the terrorist crimes of somebody like Moussoui shows exactly how dangerous it is to leave the prosecution of a mass murderer in the hands of the gen-pop. Oy.

  4. I don't understand the point of putting KSM on trial anywhere, at any time. The U.S. will never let him be a free man again, rightly so I believe. So, if that is the case, why bother having a trial of any sort, in civilian or military courts? If I am right, then any trial is just a sham. I think the guy should already be pushing up daisies, so I am not defending him in any way. But, let's not pretend we are dispensing with justice, when the man has zero chance of being a free man after the process is completed.

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