Breaking CNN - Padilla "Competent to stand trial"

[GCP]

Disgusting.
After 4 days of testimony from psychiatrists, the judge figures he's competent.
The charade goes on.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Don't tell me, let me guess.

Padilla was judged to be as sane as the president.

[ThomCat]

3. That would be good news.

It would set the precedent that we can put the president on trial. :)

[ThomCat]

2. And it clearly is a political charade.

I hope this turns into a very public fiasco that sheds a lot of light on what our government has done and is doing. We need more sunshine!

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Competence to stand trial...

Under the Dusky standard, the bar is very low. The average chimp would probably be found competent to participate in his own defense. (Bush might not, but then he's a substandard chimp.)

[PDJane]

5. That's absolute (expletive deleted).

The man is not sane, he has been pushed over the edge by sensory deprivation, and this government is responsible for doing so.

This bunch deserves war crimes tribunals.

[azurnoir]

6. So let me guess

"competent" is code for still breathing?

[kestrel91316]

7. That's the American way, all right! Torture the man until he is quite

insane, and then try him.

He is as good as convicted and executed. There is no other possible outcome here, you realize?

[RC]

8. Have to get rid of the evidence, don'tcha know?

[Jack Rabbit]

9. . . . and waterboarding isn't torture

or so we are told by the same people who say Padilla is competent to stand trial.

[EFerrari]

10. What utter cr@p!

[Solly Mack]

11. Tell me how great America is again

With liberty and justice for....??????? snort

Can't say that with a straight face

[Bandit]

12. Thank goodness he will be given a speedy trial as the Constitution guarantees

:shrug: The principles of the US Constitution are great as long as they aren't given to non Americans and even Americans that Bush* says are enemy combatants although they never fired a shot at anyone...ever.

[gratuitous]

13. Yeah, speedy

What's it been, four years since Padilla was arrested?

Somehow I think the Founding Fathers had something just a touch sooner in mind when they said "speedy."

[anotherdrew]

14. well, the judge will also be found competent to stand war crimes trials

to hell with these fascist enablers.

[ohio2007]

15. So are these proceedings going to be televised?

If not,
why not ?

[maddezmom]

16. DIA lost secret video of interrogation

The Case of the Missing Movie
The government made a secret video of its interrogations of 'enemy combatant' Jose Padilla. But now that he's on trial, the Feds claim they don't know where it went.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17389175/site/newsweek/

[Judi Lynn]

17. Oh, good grief! This is so damned dirty. From your article:

The disclosure that the Pentagon had lost a potentially important piece of evidence in one of the U.S. government’s highest-profile terrorism cases was met with claims of incredulity by some defense lawyers and human-rights groups monitoring the case. “This is the kind of thing you hear when you’re litigating cases in Egypt or Morocco or Karachi,” said John Sifton, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, one of a number of groups that has criticized the U.S. government’s treatment of Padilla. “It is simply not credible that they would have lost this tape. The administration has shown repeatedly they are more interested in covering up abuses than getting to the bottom of whether people were abused.”

Alicia Valle, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miama, said in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK that the missing DVD was “of the last interrogation of Padilla while in military custody.” She further added that a lawyer for DIA had advised the court “that an exhaustive search was conducted but the {DVD} could not be located.” She added that a classified document summarizing what took place during the session did exist, however. (Valle did not respond to followup questions from NEWSWEEK, and a spokesman for the DIA said the agency could not comment because of the pending litigation.)
(snip)

Final paragraph:
As it turned out, the Supreme Court did not rule on Padilla’s treatment in 2004 and instead sent the case back to the lower courts on technical grounds. But the expectation that it would return—and that the Supreme Court would ultimately rule that the president’s action was unconstitutional—prompted the government to transfer him back into Justice Department custody and indict Padilla on criminal charges in November 2005. The indictment accused Padilla of being part of a North American support cell that was committed to promoting violent jihad abroad. But it made no mention of the dirty-bomb plot—or even one against apartment buildings—the allegations that the administration originally used to justify his highly unusual treatment.
(snip/)

This is a case which surely cries out for "divine intervention" to set things right.

[krispos42]

18. Randi is going to explode over this!

Should be an interesting night, if I can get to work.

[struggle4progress]

19. Padilla terrorism support trial to start in April after judge rules the U.S. citizen competent

by Curt Anderson, AP
March 2, 2007

MIAMI - The long-delayed terrorism support and conspiracy trial of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for 3 1/2 years as an "enemy combatant," can go ahead next month after a federal judge ruled him mentally competent ...

In ruling Padilla competent to stand trial, Cooke said that Padilla had showed he understood "legal nuances" of pretrial motions and noted that he had signed a document verifying the truth of allegations made by the defense that he was tortured and mistreated at the brig.

"The defendant's situation is unique. He understands that," she said.

She stressed that her decision should not be read as a ruling on Padilla's torture claims ...

http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/national.cfm?ArticleID=8658

[ProudDad]

20. The bushies

are entirely too incompetent to try him though.