Detainees shouldn't have lawyers: US

[the Kelly Gang]

Detainees shouldn't have lawyers: US
August 11, 2004 - 7:24AM

The US government contested the right of detainees held at a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be represented by a lawyer before tribunals to determine whether they were really "enemy combatants" when they were captured.

The US Supreme Court ruled in June that the Defence Department had failed to give the inmates, most of whom were detained during the Afghanistan war in 2001, their full rights.

In response, special tribunals began July 29 to determine whether the detainees really were "enemy combatants" when they were captured.


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/11/1092102481479.html

[Fenris]

1. Makes me proud to live in a free and just society like America.

:eyes:

[Hobarticus]

2. Shut your pieholes and give them lawyers anyway...

The 'activist judges' on the SC said so...so DO IT!!!

I'm sick of this government and their weak-ass excuses.

[daleo]

3. Let freedom reign. n/t

n/t

[MichiganVote]

4. What are they supposed to have? Evangelical preachers?

[Veggie Meathead]

5. How about not giving any lawyers to Rumsfeld,Wolfowitz and

Bush when they are the "detainees" for their Abu Ghraib tortures?

[2Design]

6. now they are above the supreme court.....we have a problem here

these two are dangerous. Terriorists at the wheel in the WH.

[displacedtexan]

7. Jeeeeeez! Even the Nazis had lawyers!

The Nuremberg Trials were Military Tribunals...

Here's a link to the key players: http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/nuremberg/participants.html

Also, there's this:

The Creation of the Tribunal and the Law Behind It

Creation of the International Military Tribunal
During World War II, the Allies and representatives of the exiled governments of occupied Europe met several times to discuss post-war treatment of the Nazi leaders. Initially, most of the Allies considered their crimes to have been beyond the scope of human justice -- that their fate was a political, rather than a legal, question.

Winston Churchill, for example, said in 1944 that they should be "hunted down and shot." The French and Soviets also supported summary executions. The Americans, however, pushed for a trial. (A faction within the U.S. government led by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson had won a domestic battle over the U.S. position on punishment of the Nazis. The other faction, led by Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish secretary of the Treasury, supported a harsh plan designed to prevent Germany from ever rising again as an industrial power.)

In August 1945, the British, French, Americans and Soviets, meeting in London, signed the agreement that created the Nuremberg court, officially the International Military Tribunal, and set ground rules for the trial. The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, was named to avoid using words such as "law" or "code" in an effort to circumvent the delicate question of whether the trial would be ex post facto.

The London Charter set down the rules of trial procedure and defined the crimes to be tried. (It did not define the term "criminal organizations," although six organizations were indicted under the charter.)

The defendants were charged not only for the systematic butchering of millions of people, but also for planning and carrying out the war in Europe.
http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/nuremberg/law.html

[TahitiNut]

8. Yet more crimes against humanity.

Let's first make something abundantly clear: the Defense Department isn't God and doesn't give anyone their rights!! :grr:

The Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz jackbooted thugs of the Busholini Regime are violating the inalienable human rights of people everywhere! The USA is an outlaw nation under an outlaw regime!

[Disturbed]

9. Geneva Convention is "qaint".

The stand of the Neo Fascists is that the Geneva Convention is useless as is also The Constitution of the USA and The Bill of Rights.



Rumsfailed Admitted violating Geneva Convention

Rumsfailed admitted in public that when CIA Tentet requested that a prisoner be sent to a secret Afghan/US Prison that Rumsfailed did so. After four months a DOD Attorney stated that this was an illegal act so Rumsfailed ordered that this prisoner be sent back to Abu Graib but the prisoner was not listed at that location on purpose. That is two violations of the Geneva Convention. Tenet and Rumsfailed violated the Geneva convention, thereby also The Constitution of the USA. Not one complaint or charge was made regarding Rumsfailed and Tenet, not even by any Dem in Congress. Rumsfaild's admission came after some in Congress called for his resignation and after Rep. Rangel issued Impeachment of Rumsfailed, which nothing has been heard of since then.

Does the US no longer follow the Geneva Convention,the Constitution of the USA and our Bill of Rights?

It appears so.

[teryang]

10. They still don't have the terminology right

The determination that one is an "enemy combatant" is not a criminal process determination. All pows are "enemy combatants" by definition and are allowed to be confined and treated according to the Conventions without lawyers.

It is the determination that one is an "illegal enemy combatant" that triggers the right to a lawyer because this preliminary determination is akin to an indictment for criminal activity. Once such a determination is made, criminal process may be undertaken by the contracting party, or the illegal enemy combatant may be turned over to the country of capture or the mother country of citizenship for criminal prosecution. The criminal prosecution necessarily entails appropriate due process rights. A criminal process without legal representation and compulsory process is meaningless. In a core area, the prosecution of detainees or "enemy combatants" for alleged criminal activity, pretty much the full panoply of due process rights akin to what we understand as a trial are available except for a jury. As to those who are illegal enemy combatants ab initio, abdication of some due process rights would be warranted in the occupied zone, if hostilities were still underway.

In a totally secure area, curtailment of due process rights seems self defeating. For example, how will it look to execute "illegal enemy combatants" as the result of proceeding held in secret where legal counsel and compulsory legal process were not available and there were no grave exigencies to justify such an unjust process?

[struggle4progress]

11. Disgusting. eom