Perhaps we might get some civil rights back if they do.
For the record in 2000 Judge James Robertson threw out a tax charge and another for lying to federal investigators and Appellate courts overruled. No USSC review and Hubbell went for a plea deal and plead guilty to felonies in each case.
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MEANWHILE -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34519-2004Nov8.htmlJudge Says Detainees' Trials Are Unlawful
Ruling Is Setback For Bush Policy
By Carol D. Leonnig and John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A01
The special trials established to determine the guilt or innocence of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are unlawful and cannot continue in their current form, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
In a setback for the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge James Robertson found that detainees at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and therefore entitled to the protections of international and military law -- which the government has declined to grant them. <snip>
Robertson ruled that the military commissions, which Bush authorized the Pentagon to revive after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are neither lawful nor proper. Under commission rules, the government could, for example, exclude people accused of terrorist acts from some commission sessions and deny them access to evidence, which the judge said would violate basic military law.
Robertson said the government should have held special hearings for detainees to determine whether they qualified for prisoner-of-war protections when they were captured, as required by the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the administration declared the captives "enemy combatants" and decided to afford them some of the protections spelled out by the Geneva accords.
Robertson ordered that until the government provides the hearing, it can prosecute the detainees only in courts-martial, under long-established military law. <snip>
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THE ABOVE IS OVER RULED ON APPEAL - RESULTING IN BUSH BEING GIVEN THE POWER OF THE KING! - AND THE USSC APPEARS AFRAID TO REVIEW UNTIL ALITO IS PUT ON THE COURT.
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Oct. 27, 2005, at 11:19 AM ET
The Supreme Court faces an unappealing question this week: What to do about a lower-court decision that gives the president unfettered authority to chuck the Constitution, military law, and the Geneva Conventions in trying foreign detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay? It's a question that's only been complicated further by Harriet Miers' withdrawal today as Bush's nominee and the uncertainty that creates for the court's composition.
For weeks, the justices have been avoiding one of the term's most far-reaching and explosive cases, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The case seemed made for review by the court. In two contentious opinions that came down in June 2004, the justices left open crucial questions about the scope of the rights of the foreign suspects whom the Bush administration is holding at Guantanamo Bay. Hamdan is an obvious vehicle for beginning to provide answers. The lower-court opinion in the case, by a panel of three judges on the D.C. Circuit in July, was breathtakingly broad. It allowed the administration to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former bodyguard and driver of Osama Bin Laden, before a special military commission for crimes including murder and terrorism. Because it sets itself no limits, the opinion in theory would also allow the president to set up the same sort of commission—one that doesn't provide for basic rights afforded both in civilian court and in a military court martial—for any offense committed by any offender anywhere, including by an American on American soil. "No decision, by any court, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks has gone this far," Hamdan's lawyers argue. They're right.
Yet twice in the last few weeks the Supreme Court has considered whether to hear Hamdan this winter or spring, and twice the justices have declined to say they will do so. Tomorrow, they may discuss the case for a third time. Four-hundred-and-fifty law professors issued a statement on Wednesday urging it to grant review. They think the military commission set up to try Hamdan should be ruled out of bounds for three reasons. First, the commission violates traditional separation-of-powers principles—the president created it, defined who and what offenses it may try, set all its rules, and controls the appointment of its members. One branch of government isn't supposed to act both as prosecutor and judge. Second, the commission is out of step with constitutional and international standards of due process. Its rules allow for unsworn statements as testimony and for evidence that may have been gathered using coercive tactics that amount to torture. The presumption of innocence can be dispensed with at any time. Hamdan also has no right to be present at his trial.
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