How messed up are the #GTMO military commissions? Read the DC Cir. reply brief on how the judge in the capital trial of the alleged USS Cole mastermind willfully concealed an insurmountable ethical conflict that now requires vacatur of all of his rulings:
justsecurity.org/wp-content/upl…
justsecurity.org/wp-content/upl…
One of the many troubling takeaways from the brief is how complicit the government has been in trying to obfuscate / otherwise downplay the judge's flagrant violation of various ethical rules here—& how much it might have succeeded but for what @carolrosenberg uncovered via FOIA.
And the timeline that comes through from the FOIA disclosures with regard to how Judge Spath's potential (& pending) future employment as an immigration judge could reasonably be feared to have influenced his decisionmaking as the trial judge in Al-Nashiri is, in a word, damning:
On November 7, the D.C. Circuit stayed pre-trial proceedings in Al-Nashiri pending its resolution of this petition for a writ of mandamus.
Suffice it to say, the forthcoming oral argument and disposition should be ... interesting.
And yet another indictment of the #GTMO mess.
Suffice it to say, the forthcoming oral argument and disposition should be ... interesting.
And yet another indictment of the #GTMO mess.
