Why Not Use the System We Already Have In Place?

Barak,

You content that procecuting terrorist suspects in civilian courts would “would be a mockery to our system.” I must vigoursly disagree. No less a source than the Supreme Court of the United States of America finds that it is proper for persons being held by the United States governemnt have due process. In the Court’s 2004 case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor writing for the plurality wrote “a court that receives a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from an alleged enemy combatant must itself ensure that the minimum requirements of due process are achieved” (Hamdi). In a subseguent case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that military commsions were “in violation of both the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 U. S. C. §801 et seq., and Common Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention” since the defendants were not aforded their due proccess rights because they could neither see nor hear the evidence being presneted against them (Hamdan). In al-Marri v. Spagone, the Department of Justice had to move Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been held with out trial since December 2001, from military custody to the custody of the Attorney General to avoid a Court ruling that would demanded he be released outright (Johnston).

In the intervening years since the September 11^th attacks, there have been mountains of case law piled up in an attempt to figure our a whole new system in to which to serve justice to these individuals. What is making a mockery of our system is to ignore the established civilian courts. To ignore courts that have very efficient, well documented, and fair rules is not making the country safer. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, lets use the finest legal system the world has ever known to bring these criminals to justice.

Works Cited

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. No. 548 U.S. 557. Supreme Court of the United States. 29 June 2006.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. No. 542 U.S. 507. Supreme Court of the United Staes. 28 June 2004.

Johnston, David. “U.S. Will Give Qaeda Suspect a Civilian Trial.” New York Times [New York] 26 February 2009. 06 February 2010.