|
What could be worse than civilian trials of terrorists? Maybe this
|
|
Topic Started: Mar 21 2013, 11:07 PM (138 Views)
|
|
LTC8K6
|
Mar 21 2013, 11:07 PM
Post #1
|
|
Assistant to The Devil Himself
- Posts:
- 28,895
- Group:
- Tier1
- Member
- #15
- Joined:
- Apr 28, 2008
|
- Quote:
-
Remember the Fort Hood massacre? It occurred in early November of 2009, when Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people on a military base.
Three and half years later, the military still has not tried Hasan. Not that a trial of his guilt or innocence is necessary. Hasan asked, through his attorney, to plead guilty to 13 counts of premeditated murder. However, Army rules prohibit a judge from accepting a guilty plea to charges that carry the death penalty.
Hasan then tried to plead guilty to 13 counts of unpremeditated murder. No dice. The judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled that Hasan cannot plead guilty to those lesser charges, or to 32 additional counts of attempted premeditated murder, because these pleas could be used against him in the trial of the premeditated murder counts.
These outcomes are absurd. As Bill Otis explains:
Yes, we want to be sure before we execute — sure we have the right guy, and sure that the ultimate punishment is warranted in all the circumstances. But we already know we have the right guy, and the circumstances will be thoroughly examined at the penalty phase in any event. There is no such thing as a mandatory death penalty in American law.
Clearly, the left’s march through our institutions did not spare the military justice system. But we already knew this, thanks to the JAGs hijacking of U.S. anti-terrorism policy.
Bill Otis concludes:
[O]ur country has become so tentative, so defensive, so morally obtuse and frankly so silly that we have litigated to the hilt whether Maj. Hasan can keep his beard, but are flatly unwilling to accept his legal admission that he killed 13 people, an admission the entire planet knows is true. This is going on four years after the event, mind you, in which any mental problems (other than hate) the good Major might have, could have been thoroughly examined.
|
|
|
| |
|
Kerri P.
|
Mar 21 2013, 11:19 PM
Post #2
|
|
- Posts:
- 10,884
- Group:
- Tier1
- Member
- #131
- Joined:
- Apr 28, 2008
|
http://news.yahoo.com/fort-hood-shooting-delays-trial-major-hasan-begin-203249420.html Fort Hood shooting: After delays, trial of Major Hasan to begin soon Major Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will soon face a court-martial. Should the case have been labeled an act of terrorism rather than 'workplace violence?'
By Brad Knickerbocker | Christian Science Monitor – 7 hrs ago
US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding another 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, will soon face a military court-martial that is both controversial and long in coming.
Judge Tara Osborn, a US Army colonel, ruled Wednesday that the trial would go ahead at Fort Hood – the site of what a US Senate report termed "the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001" – rather than be moved to another venue as Major Hasan’s lawyers had wanted.
The Army has said the officers who will make up Hasan's jury will be brought in from another post, probably Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Reuters reports.
Hasan's counsel had said the change in venue and jury pool were a question of fairness, given the saturation coverage about the shootings in the Army Times newspaper, compared with newspapers for the other branches of the armed forces.
Jeffrey Addicott, a retired Army Special Forces judge advocate general, told Reuters before Wednesday’s hearing, "This is such a high profile case that you can't go to any military installation in the world and find a panel which has not heard about this case."
Colonel Osborn also rejected Hasan's request to select jurors from the Navy or Air Force instead of the Army.
snip......
|
|
|
| |
|
kbp
|
Mar 22 2013, 08:12 AM
Post #3
|
|
- Posts:
- 52,050
- Group:
- Tier1
- Member
- #20
- Joined:
- Apr 28, 2008
|
- LTC8K6
- Mar 21 2013, 11:07 PM
- Quote:
-
Remember the Fort Hood massacre? It occurred in early November of 2009, when Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people on a military base.
Three and half years later, the military still has not tried Hasan. Not that a trial of his guilt or innocence is necessary. Hasan asked, through his attorney, to plead guilty to 13 counts of premeditated murder. However, Army rules prohibit a judge from accepting a guilty plea to charges that carry the death penalty.
Hasan then tried to plead guilty to 13 counts of unpremeditated murder. No dice. The judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled that Hasan cannot plead guilty to those lesser charges, or to 32 additional counts of attempted premeditated murder, because these pleas could be used against him in the trial of the premeditated murder counts.
These outcomes are absurd. As Bill Otis explains:
Yes, we want to be sure before we execute — sure we have the right guy, and sure that the ultimate punishment is warranted in all the circumstances. But we already know we have the right guy, and the circumstances will be thoroughly examined at the penalty phase in any event. There is no such thing as a mandatory death penalty in American law.
Clearly, the left’s march through our institutions did not spare the military justice system. But we already knew this, thanks to the JAGs hijacking of U.S. anti-terrorism policy.
Bill Otis concludes:
[O]ur country has become so tentative, so defensive, so morally obtuse and frankly so silly that we have litigated to the hilt whether Maj. Hasan can keep his beard, but are flatly unwilling to accept his legal admission that he killed 13 people, an admission the entire planet knows is true. This is going on four years after the event, mind you, in which any mental problems (other than hate) the good Major might have, could have been thoroughly examined.
We should be reading about the trials of the SOB's that did not prevent this extreme Islamist from killing Americans while holding a position in our own military.
I suppose Otis's conclusion helps us understand how the problems over his beard are creating problems in military policies all around.
|
|
|
| |
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
|