The Military Commissions Act: "not designed to be fair; it's designed to produce convictions"

i took myself to a movie yesterday afternoon, lions for lambs, starring tom cruise, robert redford, and meryl streep... its tagline is, "what do you stand for?" a totally relevant question as we watch our country and our precious constitution being systematically lobotomized... following events as closely as i do is not a recipe for lightheartedness anyway, but i felt unusually glum after seeing this film... now, the morning after, i see nothing to mitigate the gloom...

Unique to the tribunal system that is governed by neither U.S. criminal law nor the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the commissions allow liberal use of classified evidence that a defendant doesn't get to see and protective orders that shield the identity of witnesses, interrogators and informants.

Defense lawyers for the terrorism suspects contend that the deck is stacked against them in preparing their cases. They say the administration officials running the tribunals can hide critical information and helpful testimony from the defense.

The extent to which the government can thwart defense preparation became apparent last week just 36 hours before the Thursday arraignment of Canadian war-crimes suspect Omar Khadr. His Navy lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, learned then that the commissions' hierarchy had known for five years of a U.S. government employee who was an eyewitness to the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan in which Khadr is accused of having thrown the grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic.

The eyewitness' account contradicts the government version of events and could exonerate Khadr of the war crimes with which he is charged: murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and material support for terrorism.

"They weren't going to tell us who he was or how to get in touch with him or where he was," said Kuebler, who has been lobbying the Canadian government to demand repatriation of his client so he can be tried "in a legitimate system."

"This is a process that's not designed to be fair; it's designed to produce convictions," Kuebler added.

my every waking moment is a prayer for restoring our constitution and the rule of law, and virtually every waking moment i see no real movement toward that end...

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