wow...I feel like my civil rights have been violated, I mean first they accuse him of nuclear bomb making and now they charge him with sympathizing with terrorists...which is for life?! This is wrong
What is Pedilla? I can't find any newspaper accounts regarding a "Pedilla" trial. Is "Pedilla" a new flavor of potato chips aimed at children? Oh, oh ... Padilla. Yeah, well ... this is what the future of American justice looks like. The Constitution, like the Geneva Conventions, is apparently a quaint idea. I'm just wondering if we get another Steve Earle song. I'm just an American boy raised on MTV, And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads; But none of 'em looked like me. So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim, And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word Of Mohammed, peace be upon him. A shadu la ilaha illa Allah. There is no God but God . (Steve Earle, "John Walker's Blues")
Thanks for pointing out my spelling error. I'm glad we have you hear to run the rubric over everyone's ordering of letters. Now, do you care to explain how his conviction is evidence that the constitution is a "quaint idea?"
I wasn't comfortable with how the charges started out so extreme and gradually were whittled down to their current level, either. However, that is life in our justice system. Prosecutors routinely "throw" all sorts of charges against a person, hoping something will stick. I see this every day in my work... The bigger the indictment, the better the DA or the US attorney feels...
All you have to do, Counte, is pay attention Well, if you just read the Constitution .... And as just about any journalist covering the story notes, there are serious questions about the way the government handled the Padilla case. 1,307 days in isolation. Think about that. Over half that time without being allowed to meet with his lawyer. (See Amendment VI above.) The government will never have to answer to the reports that Padilla was forced to take LSD and PCP while in custody. A forensic psychiatrist answered the question of torture by saying, "Well, 'torture,' of course, is a legal term. However, as a clinician, I have worked with torture victims and, of course, abuse victims for a few decades now, actually. I think, from a clinical point of view, he was tortured." Additionally, Dr. Hegarty suggested the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome. (DemocracyNow.org) Add to that what sounds like a reasonable accusation of prosecutorial misconduct. As attorney Leonard Weinglass notes, in discussion of a different case: And, of course, as many blogs are noting: "In the Padilla case, since there's no testimony that his co-defendants referred to him as a 'star recruit,' that language is entirely an invention of the prosecutor." (Left I on the News) Lastly, let us think about the fact that Padilla was held in isolation specifically because of the danger he allegedly posed to society. That specific danger was never raised in this trial, and therefore never supported. The alleged reason for his confinement, the suspension of his constitutional rights, his isolation, his torture ... this alleged crime is one he has never been charged with, and never will. I think if you're going to hold someone outside constitutional consideration, the reason for that suspension of the Constitution ought to be included in the day of reckoning. Additionally, if the government can't convict someone honestly, perhaps that person shouldn't be convicted. The government, as such, can make anyone disappear at least temporarily. And when it comes time to let that person answer the charge, the charge needs not include the reason they were made to disappear in the first place. The Bush administration holds that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint". In fact, it was Attorney General Gonzales who, as White House counsel, advised President Bush in that consideration. It would seem that our Department of Justice feels the same way about the U.S. Constitution, as they have apparently swept it aside for no reason whatsoever. (Remember that the "American Taliban", John Walker, pled guilty, in the end, to a charge that, technically, the United States government is also guilty of: giving aid and comfort to the Taliban.)
What you posted offers no evidence that his conviction undermines the Constitution. Rather, what you posted is that his treatment prior to his conviction was in violation of the Constitution, something I'm prone to agree with. As an American citizen, Padilla should have been afforded his Constitutional rights. Initially, he wasn't. Fortunately, the Supreme Court prodded the Justice Department into following the law. So the system, while slow and flawed, ultimately won out over the "tyranny" or "abuse of rights." Would those be the same journalists you routinely disparage? It sure sounds bad, but is it illegal? I don't know. There are a lot of people in jail who are in isolation... Which was a travesty, I agree... I have no problem with that. It seems logical. Padilla's attorneys consistently tried to make the case about all sorts of flashpoint issues that weren't applicable to the case. The circumstantial nature of the evidence, as I told a friend of mine who is an attorney, has always bothered me. But the judge and jury heard all of this and still came back with the verdict they did... I never got how he was a danger, either. But I think the reason the government gave is that they were afraid of him communicating with other terrorists or sleeper cells. But as I said, that always struck me as thin... I'm sure Padilla is free to charge the U.S. government with crimes, isn't he? I don't think you've shown he wasn't convicted honestly. He had his day in court, didn't he? I think they "can" make anyone disappear, but I don't think that's happening. There were very specific reasons for looking at this man and detaining him, and remember, he was eventually convicted... A bold choice of words, but arguably correct. They say it wasn't written for and therefore doesn't apply to state-less terrorists, which having briefly examined its contents, looks legally correct. Of course, one can make all sorts of moral or ethical arguments against their take... In this case, you're correct. But again, the checks and balances corrected that hubris, and I've seen nothing in your argument that makes me doubt the verdict, in Constitutional terms, unless you're contending that by preventing him from seeing a lawyer for a time, the government somehow tainted the proceedings? How did the US give aid and comfort to the Taliban?
That's some scary "justice" Three and a half years is a speedy trial by your standard? Not necessarily. Three and a half years is a speedy trial by your standard? Additionally, why was he never charged with the alleged crime by which the government justified his lengthy and questionable detention? And also may have inhibited his ability to assist in his own defense. The question is one of the closing arguments, in this case. Nonetheless, "two wrongs don't make a right", especially when justifying the wrongs of the prosecutor. If the idea is, as the government's case necessarily goes, that he is so dangerous as to not be allowed access to his attorney and not be allowed to know a suit has been filed on is behalf, it would seem that some aspect of this claim should be included in his criminal trial. But it wasn't, and the government will likely never have to answer for that. I suppose when you justify a specific appearance of prosecutorial misconduct by pointing at the defense attorney under different circumstances and therefore rules, there's no reason to believe that potential prosecutorial misconduct could influence the outcome of the trial. My point is that there is the appearance of malfeasance by the government. This taints the entire conviction. Splitting hairs is a different argument than calling it quaint. The checks and balances appear to have come about too late. Considering the grounds for Stockholm Syndrome, considering that Padilla shows clinical signs of having survived torture, and considering that Padilla initially refused to cooperate with his lawyers and seemed upset at them for trying to undermine the government's case against them, perhaps the People of the United States would better be represented by a trial process that avoids the question of impropriety entirely. We used to give them money. Lots of it. $43 million in May, 2001.
"Initially" is forever. He was deliberately denied his Constitutional rights for years, and no one has even been fired, let alon gone to jail, for that. The government can do to anyone what they did to Padilla, without consequence. The government got everything it wanted, except elimination of the trial requirement altogether. They abused rights and imposed tyranny successfully, and suffered no consequences. Day late and a dollar short again, they are. Not for years, and not before conviction. It's forbidded by Geneva, btw, for POWs. They did not hear all of this. He cannot subpeona evidence or testimony, his lawyers have no access to officials or documents, and he is mentally damaged by years of abuse. Not to most people. And they have reserved for themselves, in secret and without accountability, the advance determination of who is stateless and who is a terrorist - which is not legally correct, under even the extremely loose reading that allows them to hold Geneva irrelevant without finding domestic law relevant. It's not a war with battlefield opponents, when considering Geneva, and it is a war with battlefield opponents, when the US Constitution is at issue. It's like Cheney's status as member of the executive branch - variable, depending on need. The usual: weapons, money, advisers, training, gear, intelligence, suspension of opium and smuggling interdiction, etc etc.
Yes, but with the way the government acted throughout his trial, it would honestly suprise me if there was full disclosure between the prosecuters and defense. The system may have, but it's unfortunate that it did so, if it did so, over the objections of the departments which are supposed to enforce it. That being said, it seems to me unlikely that he was innocent. BTW, if your nic is a reference to the GIbson story, you rule. Undeniably. But why do you say that he shows clinical signs of surviving torture?
(Insert title here) That accusation is one I derive from a recent interview of Dr. Angela Hegarty, conducted by Juan Gonzales and Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!:
So if one person says it, makes the accusation, then you believe it??? Just like that? ....LOL!! Baron Max
for the record, having your arms tied over your head and being tickled on the ribs or under your arms can be considered torture edit: another form of torture "Victims were strapped down so that they could not move, and cold water was then dripped slowly on to a small area of the body. The forehead was found to be the most suitable point for this form of torture: prisoners could see each drop coming, and were gradually driven frantic." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture
He was held in solitary confinement for months. That alone is torture - one of the more common kinds, under tyrannies. If he was also interrogated as, say, the prisoners at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib were, that would be additional torture. In any case, there is no evidence that he was mentally recovered from the circumstances of his detainment. The presumption would be that he was not - they were severe. He confessed. We do not know exactly what he confessed to, in total - we have no record of his statements under interrogation for those many months. We have only the government's word for anything he said and anything done to him. The US government can do to any US citizen what it did to Padilla, as things stand now, without consequence. Hence, no citizen has the protections guaranteed by the US Constitution. Only inertia and convenience, expense and motive, prevent widespread use of Padilla techniques.
