Center for Constitutional Rights On Hamdan

The reactions to today's Hamdan verdict keep on coming. This is from Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights' Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative

“Hamdan’s trial violated two of the most fundamental criminal justice principles accepted by all civilized nations: the prohibition on the use of coerced evidence and the prohibition on retroactive criminal laws.

The decision to keep these cases out of the ordinary criminal courts will produce years of appeals over novel legal issues raised by the untested military commissions system. Even after those appeals are finished, the process will never be seen as legitimate by the world. This case was the first trial run of the commissions system, and the decision proves nothing except that the system itself should be scrapped. Terrorism-related crimes should be tried in the time-tested domestic criminal justice system, a system whose rules have been designed over the centuries with two goals: to seek out the truth and secure justice.”

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