Let me get this straight - did I lose my right to a fair trial by a jury

[nickyt]

of my peers yesterday? Pretty much? Conceivably?

Some of us are people who flunked civics and Latin, so "habeas corpus" has a, well, a weird sound to it. Not something I can bother my beautiful mind with. BUT, if I tell a friend more ignorant and naive than I am "hey guess what, we lost our right to a fair trial by a jury of our peers yesterday", then that might ring a bell, eh?

That IS what we lost yesterday around 6:30pm EST, right?

Can't make it without you, DU.

[babylonsister]

1. According to this, yes:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ac...

BURIED IN THE complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.

This dangerous compromise not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops "during an armed conflict," it also allows him to seize anybody who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.

But other provisions of the bill call even this limitation into question. What is worse, if the federal courts support the president's initial detention decision, ordinary Americans would be required to defend themselves before a military tribunal without the constitutional guarantees provided in criminal trials.

more...

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. I would say that this applies to anybody that belongs to a

"militia" that runs afoul of the administration. The rw nuts ought to be worried about this come 2008.

[mogster]

33. Do you have the full link?

It doesn't work, and I've put this in my blog already ;-)

[babylonsister]

36. Try this (LAT keeps changing it):

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ackerman28sep28,0,2039999.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[mogster]

38. Thanks

:-)

[mogster]

37. Found it

link

[Virginia Dare]

2. Essentially, yes...

all that would have to happen is "somebody" would have to declare you a terrorist.

The problem here is that prosecutors will always take the path of least resistance. We already know that they've used the Patriot Act to convict all sorts of crimes that are unrelated to terrorist activity.

It's a slippery slope, and our only hope in my opinion is for the federal courts to strike it down.

If they don't, all bets are off, our "Democracy" is for all intents and purposes gone, and we'll have to FIGHT to get it back.

[woodsprite]

10. Yeah, but the courts are getting threatened from Abu Gonzo now. n/t

[Virginia Dare]

13. see reply #12

I meant to reply to your message.

[Virginia Dare]

12. I saw that, the word "thug" comes to mind...

chimp out playing good cop, while everybody else around him plays bad cop. They think everybody else is as one-dimensional and moronic as they are.

They just don't get it--just because the media plays along with their childish games doesn't mean the rest of us buy into it.

They've gone way too far now, and the backlash cometh soon.

[robinlynne]

43. I dont think you even have to be called a terrorist. What if you are

considered "against america' or "against the us government". I would like to see the specific words, if anyone has them.

[fooj]

3. Here ya go...

ha·be·as corpus (hā'bē-əs)

One of a variety of writs that may be issued to bring a party before a court or judge, having as its function the release of the party from unlawful restraint.

The right of a citizen to obtain such a writ.

[leftofthedial]

4. if king george (or one of his religiously insane appointees)

decides you are an enemy of the regime.

[JuniperLea]

6. He's a terrorist! Off with his head!

<>

[bullimiami]

7. if bush labels you right he can do as he wishes.

[Mind_your_head]

8. habeas corpus - Latin "you have the body"

<snip>
habeas corpus

Lat. "you have the body" Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. Habeas corpus petitions are usually filed by persons serving prison sentences. In family law, a parent who has been denied custody of his child by a trial court may file a habeas corpus petition. Also, a party may file a habeas corpus petition if a judge declares her in contempt of court and jails or threatens to jail her.

In Brown v. Vasquez, 952 F.2d 1164, 1166 (9th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S.Ct. 1778 (1992), the court observed that the Supreme Court has "recognized the fact that`he writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.'
<snip>

More:
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/h001.htm

[uppityperson]

9. only if the Führer says so

[sandnsea]

11. No, you didn't

And if you say that to anybody they will look at you like you landed from another planet. The clueless will assume they surely would have heard something if they were trying to take away jury trials. The rest will know that this applies to terrorists only. Saying that we lost our right to a jury trial will just be met with rolled eyes and "there go those histrionic liberals again". This is too important to get wrong.

[babylonsister]

16. Do you have a source that lays this out in depth, sandnsea,

because I haven't seen one. All I have seen is what the editorial says that I posted upthread.

[sandnsea]

23. Which is not "we all lost our right to a trial"

If we want people to understand, we have to be specific and clear. You get somebody all riled up because there's no more jury trials - and then they find out it's just about terrorists - you lost them. You start from the place that citizens can be held without trial based on secret evidence that may have been gotten through torture - then they're listening. Mainstream people will never buy into doomsday, end of America, rhetoric.

[babylonsister]

24. That's not what the editorial says, and the writer has

supposedly examined the 'compromise'. It was said you can, as an American, be arrested, and you can be thrown in jail w/o a trial.
I was looking for a link to dispute that.

[sandnsea]

31. Are you kidding me?

You think links saying this or that can't be tossed back and forth? That doesn't prove anything. Do you not know there are ALWAYS varying opinions of the law, ANY law? That's why we have appeals and layers of courts.

I am saying how this is going to play out in the real world. If the OP runs around telling people we've all lost our right to a trial, people are going to think she's an idiot because they haven't closed the local court down. It's a stupid stupid way to talk about what happened yesterday. What's at risk is a fundamental keystone of democracy, the very thing we're supposed to be fighting to save. We will lose this argument if we try to scare people into thinking they've lost their right to a trial, because they will quickly see that they haven't and dismiss everything else that is said on the subject.

[babylonsister]

35. OK. So you don't have a link to dispute. That's all I was asking for. nt

[sandnsea]

40. Are your courthouses open for business?

Yes? Then you haven't lost your right to a jury trial. No link necessary.

[onenote]

39. thank you sandnsea

I've been trying to make the same point. The repubs are going to come after Democrats for opposing this legislation. If we give reasons for opposing that we can't clearly and succinctly prove to be the case, we will lose. We need to thouroughly think through the arguments and focus on the one that is most important -- that this law violates time honored principles of separations of powers and due process, deviates from international norms regarding treatment of prisoners, and ultimately endangers our own troops and leaves us more vulnerable rather than safer

[Jacobin]

18. Ya mean like those drug traffickers indicted using the Patriot Act

Remember the Patriot Act....Oh, that gonna be okay, cause we'll only use its against them thar TERAIST.....oops they lied.

But of course they'll never lie about using the new congressional crap, right?

[sandnsea]

27. Patriot Act DOES apply to citizens

Drug trafficking can be international and related to terrorism. So if you're going to make that case, you've got to have specifics. There ARE specifics, I know. Just like there are people who have had their mail opened, etc. We just haven't made that case because we've been relying on histrionic scare tactics instead. Big Brother MIGHT be wiretapping you, etc., instead of known cases where they have.

We can't afford to go down that road with this legislation.

[nickyt]

19. I hear what you're saying. But yet - such a thing is now "conceivable",

which it was not until yesterday, right?

[sandnsea]

22. Agree with that completely

People who are legal immigrants are most at risk, it seems to me. And I certainly wonder what would happen to John Walker Lindh under this legislation. But that's quite a bit different from people sounding the alarms that we'd all lost our right to a trial.

[tbyg52]

20. Of course it applies to terrorists only!

And a terrorist is whoever the cabal says it is.

[EstimatedProphet]

21. I want to make sure I understand what you are saying

If I read you right, what you are saying isn't a defense of what happened, but a prediction that the sheeple and the inbred stupids will just ignore this. The sheeple will be secure, because after all, if someone were going to take their rights away, they would have told them so first, right? And the genetically stupid will excuse this because this applies to TERRORISTS, and everybody knows all terrorists are them damn cameljockeys!

Yeah, I can see that. I saw it starting last night on the call-ins on C-SPAN.

[sandnsea]

25. Yeah, so we need a different approach

If the sheeple see their friends and neighbors going to court, then they will automatically dismiss anybody saying we've lost our right to a trial - correct?? If they bother to inquire further, the genetically stupid will tell them it's about those arab terrorists that the libruls want to coddle. Ooooh - you can hear it, can't you. Off to the mall they go.

We're losing our moral authority in the world, we're handing over too much power to the president, we've altered the foundation of democracy when we're trying to spread democracy - that requires more thinking, but it's the real truth. I don't think we'll move people, in the long run, with hyperbole.

[EstimatedProphet]

34. Agree 100%

Our biggest problem as a nation right now is that so many people are trying so hard not to see what is going on. We won't win them over by yelling about how we no onger have a right to a fair trial - even if we don't. Unfortunately we also won't win them over with reasoned arguments about the real effect of this legislation. Unfortunately, the only thing that will win a lot of the people over is when the issues can no longer be ignored, and that will come when they themelves are carted away. Nazi Germany taught us that, and in that respect I do see a realistic comparison.

[mmonk]

28. Sorry, but innocent Americans

have already been detained.

[sandnsea]

32. That happens every day

Look at John Mark Karr. People who are innocent get picked up all the time. They still get a lawyer and a trial. That hasn't changed. You're going to have to do better than that to prove to Mrs. America that she's got something to worry about.

[nickyt]

14. Thank you all for your time and patience with a lunkhead like

moi. Ya'll are "up" on these things, but I need a phrase to use with people who are even lunkier-headed than I am, and "fair trial/jury of peers" is more recognizable right off the bat people who aren't "up"... - thanks again.

[mom cat]

15. Your rights can be waived by a madman. Does that reassure you?

[Subdivisions]

17. Yes, they have set the precedence to

lock you up and throw away the key.

[pitohui]

26. if you're a suspected terrorist

if you're suspected of a non-terror crime i suppose you still have such a right if you can afford to take the chance of going in front of a jury, many innocent people feel they have no choice but to take a "plea" anyway since juries are proven to be such bad judges of people

dna has proved that juries have routinely convicted innocent men so where do we go from here?

the whole system sucks and is rotten to the core in my view, this is just the icing on the cupcake

[KG]

29. yes, you did. but it's okay as long as dems win an election.

which is waaaayyy more important. :eyes:

[Goblinmonger]

30. FUCK!

I hate how fucking stupid most americans are. I fucking hate how nobody gives a shit about what this fucking administration is doing to my country. And I really fucking hate that the spineless mother fucking democrats just sat by and did jack shit while the republicans wiped their ass with the constitution.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

[Jcrowley]

41. Possibly

Are you any of these people? Does it depend on the day of the week? What's that logo on your jacket?

"Any person subject to this chapter who intentionally uses a distinctive emblem recognized by the law of war for combatant purposes in a manner prohibited by the law of war shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

Among other things, the Act will:

* Strip the US courts of jurisdiction to hear or consider habeas corpus appeals challenging the lawfulness or conditions of detention of anyone held in US custody as an “enemy combatant”. Judicial review of cases would be severely limited. The law would apply retroactively, and thus could result in more than 200 pending appeals filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees being thrown out of court.

* Permit the executive to convene military commissions to try “alien unlawful enemy combatants”, as determined by the executive under a dangerously broad definition, in trials that would provide foreign nationals so labeled with a lower standard of justice than US citizens accused of the same crimes. This would violate the prohibition on the discriminatory application of fair trial rights.

* Permit the use in military commission trials of evidence extracted under cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

* Give the military commissions the power to hand down death sentences after trials that did not meet international standards.

* Permit the executive to determine who is an “enemy combatant” under any “competent tribunal” established by the executive, and endorse the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), the wholly inadequate administrative procedure that has been employed in Guantánamo to review individual detentions.

* Prohibit any person from invoking the Geneva Conventions or their protocols as a source of rights in any action in any US court.

* Narrow the scope of the War Crimes Act by not expressly criminalizing acts that constitute "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment" banned under international law. Amnesty International believes that the USA has routinely failed to respect the human dignity of detainees in the "war on terror".

* Endorse the administration’s "war paradigm" – under which the USA has selectively applied the laws of war and rejected international human rights law. The legislation would backdate the "war on terror" to before the 11 September 2001 in order to be able to try individuals in front of military commissions for "war crimes" committed before that date.

[MiniMe]

42. That depends, has el Presidente declared you an enemy combatant?

Of course, if he had, you might just disapear.