老澳门开奖结果

Tomorrow, we start down the dark path to a possible execution in Guant谩namo. As the Supreme Court has long , death is different. Putting someone on trial for his life requires 鈥� at a bare minimum 鈥� a rigorously fair process if even the appearance of legitimacy is to be maintained. Nowhere will that be clearer than in the first Guant谩namo military commission death penalty case, that of , who was held secretly for years by the CIA, and 鈥� as the government has admitted 鈥� .

On Wednesday, Mr. al-Nashiri will appear before the world for the first time since he was seized more than eight years ago. He will stand up and state whether he pleads guilty or innocent to planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Should he be found guilty, he may be executed. But the Guant谩namo military commission he will appear before will not provide justice for him, for the U.S.S. Cole victims, or for Americans anywhere. I will be at Guant谩namo tomorrow to observe the proceedings for the 老澳门开奖结果.

John Brennan, President Obama鈥檚 chief counterterrorism advisor, claimed in a on September 16, 2011 that 鈥渞eformed military commissions鈥� provide all of the core protections that are necessary to ensure a fair trial.鈥� But if that is the case 鈥� if the basic structure of a Guant谩namo military commission is the same as a civilian court 鈥� why is a Guant谩namo military commission necessary at all? After all, a U.S.S. Cole sits waiting in federal court.

The answer comes from Brennan as well: real differences do remain between a commission and a federal trial. Among them are the admissibility of hearsay, on which the government plans to rely heavily in this case, and the admissibility of coerced evidence. As Mr. Brennan conceded, those are 鈥渄ifferences that can determine whether a prosecution is more likely to succeed or fail.鈥� Put another way, the Obama Administration has chosen a Guant谩namo military commission for Mr. Al-Nashiri because they think the rules of evidence there are lax enough that they are certain to win. It is hard to make the argument that you are in favor of the rule of law when you make decisions based on the rule of victory.

But the flaws of the Guant谩namo military commissions are such that any victory will be years in the making 鈥� and may well prove pyrrhic. Since this is a system designed entirely from scratch, there is virtually no legal history testing its contours. Unresolved legal clouds loom. Can a Guant谩namo military commission try someone for crimes, like those alleged here, that took place before September 11, 2001? A Guant谩namo military commission has jurisdiction only over war crimes, but were we at war before 9/11? If not, the power of the Guant谩namo commission to hear this case vanishes. Was one of the key charges against Mr. al-Nashiri, conspiracy, a war crime at the time Mr. al-Nashiri was allegedly acting? . If it was not a war crime, did Congress violate the of the Constitution when in 2006 it retroactively made it one? Is it legitimate to use evidence that is the poisonous fruit of coercion? Even if the coerced statement itself is thrown out, can the prosecution still use information that was gathered only thanks to that coercion, such as the names of possible witnesses?

In all likelihood, it will take years for the Supreme Court to resolve these issues. Keep in mind that federal death penalty cases usually take two to two and a half years. And this is far from a usual case. The usual criminal defendant has not been and secreted away for years by the government. The usual criminal case does not involve legal questions about whether the court has the power to hear the case at all. The usual criminal prosecution does not require flying the judge, lawyers, and court staff hundreds or thousands of miles every time there is a hearing. The discovery process alone will likely consume all of 2012, especially if 鈥� as expected 鈥� the government resists disclosing much of the evidence Mr. al-Nashiri鈥檚 lawyers will request, most critically anything to do with Mr. al-Nashiri鈥檚 torture in the CIA鈥檚 secret prison system. A trial may be years away.

There is far more at stake than Mr. al-Nashiri鈥檚 fate. The debate about Guant谩namo military commissions versus federal courts is not just one of rhetoric, inflamed by the upcoming elections. It is one of real consequences. Some of our European allies 鈥擥ermany, Sweden, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, to name a few 鈥� on terrorism cases if intelligence being shared or a suspected terrorist being extradited is going to end up before a Guant谩namo military commission. That lack of cooperation is one reason why even the . How many other allies will withhold cooperation in fighting terrorism if we do not get this right? Are we willing to risk our allies鈥� cooperation 鈥� and our own reputation for fairness 鈥� for the sake of putting one individual to death?

Stay tuned for more updates from Guant谩namo this week.

Learn more about torture and detention: Sign up for breaking news alerts, , and .