Obama gets his first terrorist acquittal in civilian court

Am I missing something?

Non-trial method: no convictions, life in prison

Trial method: 1 conviction, life in prison

It's funny that this is considered a bad thing by the resident wingnuts.

 

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Since when does an acquittal come with a 20 year sentence?

 

you supported george w. bush.

 

Greenwald writes well...

What's amazing to me is that we "Liberals" are making the very conservative case here and the "Conservatives" are asking for something radical and not in keeping with the tradition and history of our country.

And regarding the torture finding, here's what the Judge wrote:

Amen. Regardless of how the torture apologists want to characterize it, the Judge rightly saw that torture and 2 years of imprisonment in a CIA black site and years more in Gitmo led to a coerced statement. And that, he rightly decided, is unconstitutional. ( That would be the 5th Amendment for you torture lovers... the one that includes: nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.)

Of course, this case should be trouble for the Obama Administration, but not for the reasons the wingnuts are frothing. We must confront the torture regime of the Bush-Cheney years sooner or later and Obama must quickly make the decision whether he will be in league with or apart from them. Right now, I'm pessimistic.

 

yes. it's not life, it's 20 to life, and he'll be eligible for parole much earlier.

 

parole for federal prison?

 

so? justice was served

you got a problem with that?

 

ummm no he hasn't been sentenced yet genius, and won't be till January 25.

 

...but, but, but he was acquittted, wasn't he?

 

my reading:

Per the judge's comments quoted by rim early on in the thread, the 'enemy combatant' label still holds. So, they could have acquitted him on all charges and locked him up anyways until they deemed the 'hostilities' done. Basically...we had a fair trial and found you guilty so we get to lock you up....but if we hadn't found you guilty, we'd still have locked you up. Is this justice?

In this particular case they had the backup charges that didn't require the key witness. So the result of tossing the evidence of the murder charges is potentially moot. Would we champion this decision if the guy got to walk out of the courtroom a free man because of the nature in which the evidence was gathered? It's a lot easier to make a stand on principle, when there is no real effect on the outcome. Hurray for us for upholding this important principle -- and we got to lock you up on another charge anyway.

I think you'll see (and have seen) this case being made to fit to whatever particular narrative strokes the writer's message.

 

yet you didn't call out Major on the same point.

Spoiler

fascinating.

 

i think the primary narrative is, and will be, that Stedman needs to go.

 

I think the narrative will be how stupid it is to try terrorists with civilian court procedures. Obama and Holder will take some heat, but Holder won't be fired.

 

because he's not a douchenozzle.

Spoiler

fascinating.

 

Nor should Holder be fired. He did nothing wrong. He wasn't the idiot that used torture and had the star witness become useless.

Civilian trials thus far have been superior in punishing the terrorists.

 

In what way? This was the first Gitmo detaniee trial and I would say the outcome is unsatisfactory.

 

"Conservaties"
Lets get back to the principals of our founding fathers!!!!!!!

...but Due Process isn't always important.

...Oh, and very first Ammendment Freedom of Religion ...yea, that's open to interpretation ...MY interpretation. Cause seperation of church is state is really just a conspiracy.

...wait, we need to ammend the Constitution (cause our founding fathers screwed up the part about gay marriage)

...the land of opportunity ...unless you can prove you are 5th generation full blooded American ...then you better get the hell out of my country.

...we are a Christian nation following the principals of Jesus ...unless you end up on the wrong side of the law then we'll nail your arse to the electric chair. Oh, and we'll also indiscriminantly bomb the crap out of your country.

...we are capitalists damit ...but where the hell do those airlines get off charging us all those fees. Those bastards.

Buy American ...unless it's oil of course then bring it on!

We hate socialists so WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS by giving them the best lifelong health care system our money can buy. ...hey wait, what?

 

I'd say getting acquitted and still facing up to 20 years to life in prison is pretty unsatisfactory if you're the acquittee.

 

Hey, How's the family, where've you been and great post.