Salim Hamdan has been sentenced to 66 months in prison, far short of the 30 years-to-life sentence the prosecution requested. Good news for Hamdan? Probably not, as Colonel Morris Davis -- the third chief prosecutor of the military commissions, who resigned because of political interference by the Pentagon -- pointed out in the comments to my ex post facto post: The...
As Marty points out in his post, whether convicting Hamdan of "material support for terrorism" (MST) violates the Ex Post Facto Clause will be a major issue in Hamdan's appeal. Having now read Judge Allred's decision carefully, I strongly disagree with his conclusion that it does not. Judge Allred's framing of the ex post facto issue (p. 3) is unobjectionable: "the...
The State of Texas carried out its execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin late Tuesday night. It did so following the Supreme Court's denial of a stay, 5-4. The split is unsurprising, with the majority focused (accurately I suspect) on the fact that a legislative fix was unlikely, and reading DOJ's silence on the stay request as consistent with a larger...
That, in essence, is the surprising argument that the Coast Guard raised in a recent administrative law decision involving regulation of shipping traffic to protect an endangered species. In Defenders of Wildlife v. Gutierrez, the D.C. Circuit was presented with the question of whether Coast Guard action implementing "traffic separation schemes" constituted "final agency action" within the meaning of...
Last week, reflecting on the effusive welcome he received in Germany, Obama said the following to a group of House Democrats: It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning...
Today’s discussion of Ben’s book focuses on what kind of detention law we should have going forward. Given that I am in Israel now I thought it might be useful to offer a comparative example. Such a comparison is particularly useful when proposed legislation is under consideration and another country has similar terrorist threats. The Israeli...
Just in case there is some blogger fairness doctrine I don't know about, I should mention that Obama seems to generally favor the ICC -- though he obviously has reservations about U.S. membership. Here is his clearest statement, made last October: Now that it is operational, we are learning more and more about how the ICC functions. The Court has pursued...
I really wanted to ignore the Wall Street Journal editorial that Julian mentioned yesterday, filing it in the "life is too short" category. But I can't help myself, because the editorial is just shockingly factually inaccurate -- to say nothing of its rather curious judgment, such as the idea that Bashir "may be the only man able to guarantee...
I know we will be having a discussion of Tom Farer's book on a grand liberal strategy for dealing with terrorism down the road, but I wanted to note that the general issue of 'grand strategy' is at the heart of Philip Bobbitt's new book, Terror and Consent. It has deservedly been widely reviewed and highly praised - Ferguson in...
As Texas stays on track to execute Jose Medellin on August 5, it is worth shifting our attention back to Texas. I've always thought the ideal solution to the ICJ-Vienna Convention conundrum is for each individual state to independently comply with the ICJ's judgment. Although I think the ICJ's interpretation of the Vienna Convention is not entirely persuasive, I think...
As frustration with the Bush administration's War on Transparency continues to mount, scholars and pundits are beginning to suggest that the U.S. should think about creating a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the administration's many crimes. Nicholas Kristof is one example. Richard Clarke is another. And a third is Katherine Tiedemann, writing in The American Strategist: The South...
The Seventh Circuit last week rendered the most unusual foreign non conveniens decision I have ever read. The case presents a cautionary tale about the impact that foreign judicial corruption can have on domestic litigation. Mañez v. Bridgestone Firestone involved a tort action against Bridgestone Firestone filed in Indiana after José Samuel Mañez-Reyes died in a "rollover" car accident in...
