LOS ANGELES TIMES– The system of military commissions that will try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11
plotters contains a dirty little secret. Hardly anybody talks about it,
but it’s a key reason for concern as the apparatus becomes established.
It is this: The commissions can operate inside the United States, and
they have jurisdiction over a broad range of crimes. Nothing in the
Military Commissions Act limits the military trials to Guantanamo
detainees, or to people captured and held abroad, or even to terrorism
suspects. Nothing prevents the commissions from trying noncitizens,
arrested inside the country, whom the president unilaterally designates
as “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” In other words, the law permits
military officers to try non-Americans from Alabama and Arkansas as well
as Afghanistan.
The Obama administration’s decision last week to shift the high-profile
9/11 case from federal court is bound to move the military system toward
legitimacy. The commissions lack the seasoned body of precedent that
guides civilian courts, so their procedures will have to survive
litigation by defense lawyers. But once the commissions gain stature and
become the “new normal,” every future administration will have a ready
instrument to arrest, judge and sentence wholly within the executive
branch, evading the separation of powers carefully calibrated in the
Constitution. The judicial branch has no role except on appeal, where
only the federal court for the D.C. circuit may review a verdict and
sentence after the trial.
Read full article about 9/11 Trials at Guantanamo Will Create a Distressing Legacy.
© 2011 LA TIMES
Photo by Brennan Linsley Pool, Reuters
