military commissions

Since Attorney General Eric Holder announced the alleged masterminds of the 9/11 attacks would be tried in New York, there’s been much speculation about whether they’ll plead guilty, as some have suggested they would before military commissions, or insist on a trial and put on a defense.
Scott Fenstermaker, a lawyer defending one of the men, [...]

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that one reason he decided to try the five suspected 9/11 co-conspirators in federal court is because that was where he would most likely be able to win a conviction. As he said later in the hearing: “Failure is not an option. These [...]

On his MSNBC morning show today, Dylan Ratigan asked me if I thought the decision to bring the suspected 9/11 co-conspirators to trial in a New York federal court was an attempt to “deboogeymanificate” those notorious terrorists we’ve heard so much about. After all, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged al-Qaeda co-plotters have often been [...]

Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 suspects in federal court has been hailed as everything from “an important step forward for justice” by Human Rights Watch to “a step backwards for the security of our country [that] puts Americans unnecessarily at risk” by Senate Minority Leader [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder just announced that he will seek the death penalty for the five 9/11 terror suspects. They will be tried in a New York federal court, as reported earlier this morning.

After much delay and speculation, the Obama administration has reportedly decided to try the alleged co-conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in a civilian federal court in New York. That’s a significant defeat for some lawmakers, who had hoped to ban the men from civilian courts and force their trial in military commissions.

When I wrote my earlier post about the group of illustrious Americans urging the Obama administration to close Guantanamo and bring suspected terrorists to justice in U.S. federal courts, I neglected to mention that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), joined by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), is today pushing a measure [...]

Depending on who you ask, the sentencing yesterday of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri to eight years in prison is either evidence that the civilian federal judicial system can successfully handle terror cases, or evidence that it’s a dismal failure.
Yesterday, Jonathan Hafetz, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented Al-Marri in his challenge to military [...]

President Obama confirmed Wednesday that he plans to keep the controversial military commissions alive.

The Obama administration is making plans to send about 25 detainees from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay to federal prisons, to be tried in civilian federal courts, according to Newsweek.
As TWI reported last week, the biggest ongoing controversy is over where to try the five suspected 9/11 co-conspirators. The administration has said it prefers [...]