ACLU Reacts to Johnson on Post-Acquittal Detention

Jameel Jaffer, head of the American Civl Liberties Union’s national security project, has a few problems with Defense Department General Jeh Johnson’s speculation yesterday that the Obama administration might detain people even after they’ve been acquitted in a terrorism trial. From a just-released statement:

“Continuing to detain a person indefinitely without charge or trial for a crime for which he has been acquitted is absurd and unconstitutional. If the government has sufficient evidence to warrant criminal charges against prisoners held at Guantánamo, it should file those charges and prosecute the prisoners in ordinary federal courts. But the government should not be holding prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial, and it should certainly not be holding show trials from which guilty verdicts will be honored but acquittals will be ignored. The suggestion that the government can protect the country only by disregarding the Constitution is an extremely dangerous one that should be unequivocally rejected.”