[Imc-newsroom] ATTN: NEWS DESK

[Pless, Paul D]

PRESS RELEASE

ATTENTION NEWS DESK

WHAT:  PROFESSOR RUTH WEDGEWOOD SPEAKING ABOUT HER ROLE IN CREATING THE
MILITARY TRIBUNALS
WHEN:  THURSDAY, MARCH 28 @ 3:00 PM
WHERE: COLLEGE OF LAW AUDITORIUM

All across the country legal scholars are voicing their outrage at the new
restraints being place upon all of our civil liberties post September 11th.
Security concerns are overiding liberty. 

Tomorrow at 3:00 PM at the College of Law Auditorium, Ruth Wedgewood, a
professor of international law at Yale will be coming to talk about her
efforts in forming the military tribunals that are to be used to "try" the
detainees the US goverment currently has imprisoned in Cuba.  Professor
Wedgewood was recently thanked  by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for
her efforts in creating the procedure for the military tribunals.

As law students we are taught that the protections built into our legal
system are critical to justice.  Safeguards like due process, right to
counsel, of our choosing, the right to confront witnesses, review of trial
court decisions, and restriction of hearsay evidence are intergal to a just
system of law.

At a time when our nation should be extolling the virtues of our system of
justice, our government is making the statement that non-Americans don't
desrve justice.  The "kangaroo" courts that are being set up by our
government are a symbol of what has gone wrong in America since Septmeber
11th.  

Tomorrow at 3:00 PM in the law school auditorium, some law students will be
prepared to ask Ms. Wedgewood some tough questions on why our goverment has
decided to not follow its own laws.  Why if those that are being detained
are so heinous they can't be convicted under our normal system of justice?
What is there to hide?  We encourage you, the media to come and listen.  To
hear both sides and also to take a picture of a guy in a kangaroo suit.
(Great Photo Op!)

We would also like to make clear that we applaud the law school for bringing
in speakers to raise the level of debate in this country.  We are merely
excercising our rights to speak our minds and share our thoughts.  This is
not an attempt in any way to disrupt the speaker.


thanks for your time.


Some additional information below:

Nat Hentoff
'A Mere Pretense of Legal Process'
Spinning the Military Tribunals
  
 
The American people will agree that [these rules for military tribunals] are
a fair and balanced product that the American people can be proud of.
-Victoria Clarke, Pentagon spokeswoman, CNN, March 22 
These concessions do little to change the structure of the tribunal as a
makeshift court designed to produce predictable convictions. -Jonathan
Turley, George Washington University law professor, Los Angeles Times, March
21 

John Ashcroft began his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
December 6 with a menacing attempt to intimidate American critics who say
his and the president's war on terrorism is causing collateral damage to
civil liberties on the homefront. 

"Your tactics only aid terrorists," he said. "They give ammunition to
America's enemies." 

It took a while, but despite this threat by the nation's chief
law-enforcement officer, choruses of dissent began to rise from bar
associations, constitutional scholars, journalists, civil liberties groups,
and citizens across the political spectrum. 

Some of the sharpest criticism was directed at the hastily and sweepingly
drawn draft of the president's military order setting up the tribunals. The
administration was surprised that the dissenters included members of the
Washington legal establishment, as well as former military lawyers in the
court-martial system. 

The telegenic secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was put in charge of
formulating the final regulations released last week, and they have
mollified some of the critics. The trials will be open, with the press in
attendance. The evidence will have to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 

A sentence of capital punishment will require a unanimous verdict by the
military court. And the defendant will not only get free military lawyers,
but can also hire a civilian attorney-if he can pay for one. Like most
defendants on our death rows, many of the accused will be indigent. 

The new regulations also provide for the presumption of innocence. But in an
interview on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS, Paul Wolfowitz, deputy
secretary of defense, had a burst of candor. He said, "If anyone goes before
this commission [as the tribunal is now called], it's because we have every
reason to believe they have been involved in some of the most terrible
crimes of this century." 

It is not unreasonable to call this a presumption of guilt. Since there will
be no appeals to our federal courts, and since the justice meted out is of a
lesser standard than even that of courts-martial, The New York Times-in a
March 22 lead editorial-is correct in saying that despite the improvements,
"the tribunals would still constitute a separate, inferior system of
justice, shielded from independent judicial review." And is it certain that
only noncitizens will be defendants? 

Consider the standards for the evidence that will be used to prove guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt. Barbara Bradley, National Public Radio's
first-rate reporter on our system of justice, gets to the core of this
distortion of due-process, clearly making a point that eludes, for example,
the editorial writers of The Wall Street Journal. 

"It'll be a lot easier to get evidence into these proceedings than, say,
into a federal court or a military trial. Basically, the standard is any
evidence that has 'probative value to a reasonable person' will be admitted,
and that means hearsay or second-hand evidence could be admitted." 

Hearsay includes rumors, gossip, and statements that cannot be verified. And
the supposedly independent "reasonable persons" weighing which evidence can
be admitted will be military officers chosen by their commander in chief,
George W. Bush. He is the very person who decides, in the first place, who
will be hauled before the military tribunal. 

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington
University, has served as a lawyer in national security cases in federal and
military courts. Turley, a reasonable person, emphasizes the distance
between these tribunals and the American rule of law: 

"It is clear that the new rules were written by prosecutors to govern their
own prosecutions. The biggest changes are in areas that prosecutors find
inconvenient, such as proving that evidence is authentic before using it.
Accordingly, tribunal prosecutors will not have to 'authenticate'
evidence-or even show a chain of custody." 

Where did the evidence come from originally? Whose hands did it pass through
before being used against the defendant in a military tribunal? Could the
so-called evidence have come from a person tortured by police in one of
those countries where torture is a customary form of persuading prisoners to
say what the authorities want to hear? 

It is reasonable to expect that a prisoner convicted by the tribunal and
sentenced to death, or to spend many of the rest of his years in prison,
will want to appeal the verdict. Barbara Bradley explains his chances for
due process (a quaint term in this context) both before the tribunal and
during a subsequent appeal. 

The tribunal itself "will be composed of between three and seven military
officers," she reports. "The presiding officer will have to be a JAG [judge
advocate general] or a military lawyer, but the others don't have to have
any legal training at all." 

As for the board that will review the sentence, it will be composed of three
or more military officers appointed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld can also temporarily include civilians-just like in the Old West,
where the Dodge City sheriff could deputize "reasonable persons" to complete
a posse. 

Jonathan Turley makes the intriguing point that the review panel "will not
be permitted to apply the U.S. Constitution or federal law. This creates the
mere pretense of legal process. . . . The framers expressly denied the
president the right to create and mete out his own form of justice. It takes
more than a few rule changes to remove the 'kangaroo' from the court. One
can shampoo and pedicure a kangaroo, but it does little to change the
appearance of a president's own private menagerie of justice." 


Professor Boyle's Argument

HEADLINE: U.S. under fire for treatment of detainees: critics abroad cite
inhumane conditions, ambiguous legal status of prisoners; Nation;
Afghanistan prisoners of war

BYLINE: Patterson, Margot

BODY:

Criticism continues to grow of the U.S. treatment of captured fighters from
Afghanistan who are being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo
Bay,Cuba. The United States is calling the captives "detainees" or "unlawful
combatants," but the European Union, the U.N. secretary general and the
U.N.High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson have joined such human
rights organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in
saying the detainees should be regarded as prisoners of war due all the
legal protections afforded prisoners of war by the third Geneva Convention.

Concern about the approximately 160 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, so far
muted in this country but growing overseas, focuses not only on the
detainees'ambiguous legal status, which the United States has so far
resisted clarifying, but on their physical confinement in Cuba and the
conditions in which they were transported there. Prisoners were manacled,
shackled and hooded and at least a few were sedated on the long flight to
Cuba. Some may have had their beards forcibly shaved in violation of their
religion. They are being kept outside in roofed eight-foot-square chain-link
cages where they are exposed to wind and rain.

Cages called 'a scandal'

Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch, called
the cages "a scandal." Amnesty International said such cages "fall below
minimum standards for humane treatment" and criticized the hooding and
drugging of prisoners during transport. Photos of al Qaida suspects, hooded
while awaiting interrogation in Afghanistan, prompted the human rights
organization to send the U.S. secretary of defense a letter in early January
reminding him that the U.N. Committee against Torture has condemned the
hooding and blindfolding of suspects during interrogation.

Amnesty International spokesman Alistair Hodgett said hooding prisoners
during detention violates principles set down by the U.N. General Assembly
that prisoners should not be deprived of their natural senses. Hooding is of
concern, said Hodgett, because mistreated prisoners who are hooded or
blindfolded cannot identify those who abused them.

While saying that most of the protections set down by the Geneva Conventions
would be provided the detainees in Cuba, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld has insisted the captives held at the base in Cuba are not legal
combatants and as such are not prisoners of war, a legal status that would
provide them with greater rights under the Geneva Conventions, which the
United States and most other nations are party to.

Nonetheless, the Department of Defense said the U.S. government would treat
the detainees according to the guidelines of the Geneva Conventions and give
them proper food, water, medical treatment, shelter and security. Capt.
Riccoh Player, a Department of Defense spokesman, said the detainees have
time in their schedule for exercise, for prayer and meditation, and are fed
three "culturally appropriate meals" a day.

In a Jan. 16 statement about the U.S.-held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, U.N.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson reminded Americans that
international legal obligations are to be respected and that any dispute
about the detainees' entitlement to prisoner of war status must be decided
by a competent tribunal in accordance with the provisions of Article 5 of
the Third Geneva Convention. The International Committee of the
International Red Cross,which administers the Geneva Conventions, also holds
that in an international conflict all parties should be awarded prisoner of
war status unless and until an independent court deems otherwise, said
committee spokesman Kim Gordon-Bates.

Like any legal document, the wording of the Geneva Convention has some
complexity to it, but human rights advocates say that while captured al
Qaida fighters may not meet the criteria the Geneva conventions established
for prisoners of war, Taliban soldiers, who were representatives of the
government of Afghanistan, most likely would.

"Most experts around the world are condemning the position taken by the U.S.
government. It's just balderdash," said Francis Boyle, a professor of
international law at the University of Illinois in Champaign, who has ved as
the general agent representative of Bosnia Herzegovina before the
International Court of Justice.

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war cannot be required to furnish
any information in interrogations other than name, rank and serial number
and if they are prosecuted for war crimes, they must be tried by the same
courts under the same rules as members of the detaining country's armed
forces, a provision that would mean Afghan fighters could be tried in
civilian courts or in military courts-martial but not in the military
tribunals the Bush administration has created.

Prisoners of war cannot be tried for taking up arms in defense of their
country. All prisoners, including those who lack prisoner of war status,
have the right to legal counsel if they are interrogated not simply for the
purpose of gaining information but for prosecution. So far, the United
States has not said what it intends to do with the prisoners it is holding.
Rumsfeld said some  may be tried by civilian courts, some by military
tribunals and some may be shipped back to their home country for trial.

In legal limbo

Officials at Guantanamo Bay say no interrogations have taken place. Amnesty
International is calling on the U.S. government to clarify the legal status
of the detainees. "There are certain minimum standards of treatment for
detainees, regardless of whether you grant them prisoner of war status. The
United States has resisted choosing from among one of the recognized
standards for a detainee.

It leaves the men in legal limbo without a status that grants them rights
under law," said Hodgett. Boyle said the United States is opening itself up
to reprisals if Taliban or al Qaida forces capture U.S. soldiers. "We are
threatening the integrity of not  only the Third Geneva Convention on
prisoners of war but the entire Geneva Conventions structure. It's a very
serious matter," said Boyle.

The Geneva Conventions are a series of international treaties made in Geneva
between 1864 and 1949 to ease the effects of war on soldiers and civilians.
They provide for the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers, for the
protection of civilian persons during war, and for humane treatment of
captured prisoners.

The dispute over the United States' perceived flouting of international law
is so far a much bigger story abroad than it is at home. Abroad photos
released by the Department of Defense showing the prisoners kneeling before
their captors with manacled hands, shaved heads and wearing blacked-out ski
goggles, surgical masks and ear cups have led to charges of torture and have
fueled debate over American violations of international norms.

"If indeed we are committed to tackling international terrorism, examples of
Western powers not taking seriously Muslim religion, Muslim lives and Muslim
human rights will work against success," observed Glenda Jackson, a member
of Parliament, in a debate in the British Parliament.

'These are not schoolchildren'
U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, has defended the administration's handling of the prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay. "Yes, they're being treated tough, but these are not
schoolchildren," said Lieberman. "They are dangerous people. I think our
military is doing just the right thing in the way they are handling them at
Guantanamo."

In the United States, a legal challenge to the treatment of the prisoners
has been filed by a coalition of Los Angeles clergy, journalism professors
and civil rights attorneys, including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark,demanding that the detainees at Guantanamo be taken before a court and
told the charges against them. Judge A. Howard Matz, a federal judge in Los
Angeles, will decide whether a federal court has jurisdiction over the
prisoners in Cuba.

Boyle said decisions about the detainees in Cuba are being made by
Federalist Society lawyers at the White House rather than international law
experts at the Pentagon. Boyle said President Bush had been criminally
misadvised by his lawyers who have incriminated him and created a situation
where the president is open to universal prosecution just as former Chilean
leader Augusto Pinochet was in London. Boyle said Bush had not only violated
international law but U.S. domestic law passed under former President
Clinton that supports the Geneva Conventions.

Writing for The Independent newspaper in London, Adam Roberts, Montague
Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, said
"observance of international standards generally, and the coalition cause,
maybe in jeopardy if the U.S. ignores basic norms."

Margot Patterson is a senior writer for NCR.