Who Can Really Say?

John Kerry's Running for Sheriff

I don't know why John Kerry didn't mention this Thursday night at the Convention. It'd have been a big applause line.

John Kerry said Friday he would put Osama bin Laden on trial in U.S. courts rather than an international tribunal to ensure the "fastest, surest route" to a murder conviction if the terrorist mastermind is captured while he is president.

"I want him tried for murder in New York City, and in Virginia and in Pennsylvania," where planes hijacked by al-Qaida operatives crashed Sept. 11, 2001, Kerry said in his first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Sometimes it's better when a candidate is asked a narrow, direct question that actually gets an answer instead of a talking point. Michelle Malkin conisders the implications of Kerry's revealed prosecutorial fervor:

So, this is how Kerry proposes to make America "stronger and more secure?" By adopting the Clinton law enforcement approach as the primary means to combat Islamic terrorism? "Fastest, surest route" to a murder conviction? What about the need to interrogate bin Laden and gather critical intelligence on al Qaeda? Where did Kerry ever get the idea that putting bin Laden through our civilian courts would be "fast?" And how clueless could he possibly be to ignore the fact that much of the evidence against bin Laden (for example, statements of interrogated al Qaeda detainees such as Ramzi bin al Shibh and Khalid Sheik Mohamed) would be inadmissable at trial?

The idea of prosecuting suspected terrorists like burglars or drug dealers seems to make sense in principle, but jury trials for War on Terror suspects are fraught with peril.

"In ordinary civilian trials, there is no significant cost to sharing everything the government knows," notes Johns Hopkins international law professor Ruth Wedgwood. "But this does not hold against the background of Al Qaeda's stated ambition of mounting new attacks." Affording accused Al Qaeda operatives the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial threatens to compromise classified information necessary to prosecute future terrorist trials. Other rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment—the right to subpoena witnesses and compel them to testify, the right to an attorney—can interfere with interrogations of captured suspected Al Qaeda agents. Moreover, in civilian courtrooms, prosecutors are severely restrained from closing off classified information under the existing federal Classified Information Procedure Act. Anonymous testimony and intelligence based on hearsay are often inadmissible in civilian courts. And while the lives of those immediately involved in say, a mob trial, might be endangered, the entire nation may be at risk when we allow suspected members of a terrorist network to partake in the discovery process.

She goes on because there's alot more. Kerry's probably right on one point though. As long as it would take to try Osama in the US, it would probably still be quicker than an "International Tribunal" specializing in stretching the trial out long enough for the defendant to die of natural causes..

For a few hours on Monday, the world’s human rights establishment was seized by terror. Slobodan Milosevic had been due to begin his defence at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, but instead discussion focused on the former president’s fragile health, which has been made worse by the rigours of the trial.

Myself? I favor trial by M.O.A.B. But if it comes to a trial in the US, I'll take one west of the Pecos River.

Posted by Peter at July 31, 2004 08:15 AM