[Deathpenalty] FW: HLS' Vagts for Gitmo Kangaroo Courts:Harvard's Kangaroo Law School

Fri Apr 13 17:53:07 UTC 2007

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

________________________________

From: Boyle, Francis 
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 11:04 AM
To: 'AALSMIN-L at lists.ubalt.edu'
Subject: HLS' Vagts for Gitmo Kangaroo Courts:Harvard's Kangaroo Law
School

    The latest edition of the American Journal of Imperial Law has an
article by Harvard Law School's Bemis Professor of International Law
Detlev Vagts endorsing the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts despite the fact that
they have been condemned by every human rights organization in the world
as well as by the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan. I am not going
to bother to repeat here all the grievous deficiencies of the Gitmo
Kangaroo Courts under international law and US Constitutional Law. But
I have been personally involved in five court-martials under the Uniform
Code of Military Justice  over the years involving war: USMC Jeff
Paterson, the first military resistor to Gulf War I by Bush Sr; Captain
Dr. Yolanda Huett-Vaughn, the highest ranking officer to be
court-martialled for  refusing to participate in Bush Sr's Gulf War I;
Capt Lawrence Rockwood, court-martialed by the Army for trying to stop
torture in Haiti; Staff Sgt Camilo Mejia, the first military resistor to
Bush Jr's war against Iraq; and now Lt. Ehren Watada, the first
commissioned officer to be court-martialled for refusing to participate
in Bush Jr's war against Iraq. See my forthcoming Protesting Power: War,
Resistance and Law (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc). As i can
attest from my personal experience, everyone of these court-martials
under the UCMJ have been Stalinist show-trials by the military. These
five UCMJ court-martials involving war prove the old adage attributed to
Groucho Marx that military justice is to justice as military music is to
music. And the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts are not even run in accordance with
the UCMJ despite the fact that the US Supreme Court in Hamdan ruled that
they should be. Whenever they are up and running the Gitmo Kangaroo
Courts will constitute Stalinist Show Trials as well as Kangaroo Courts.
And the fact that the Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard
Law School  has publicly endorsed the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts despite
Hamdan  proves that Harvard has  a Kangaroo Law School:Harvard Kangaroo
Law School. Along with the 4 torture mongerers on the HKLS Faculty:
Dersh;Parker;Goldsmith and Waco Phil Heymann. And their  2 certifiable
war criminals: Dersh and Goldsmith. And the Dean of the Harvard Kangaroo
Law School Kagan who boasted in the Washington Post that she is "so
proud" to have hired their war criminal Goldsmith. And in the Boston
Globe Kagan boasted  that the "future of international legal studies" at
Harvard Kangaroo Law School is in the "good hands" of their war criminal
Goldsmith. 
    The Harvard Kangaroo Law School Faculty and Deans are no longer fit
to educate Lawyers, Members of the Bar, and Officers of the Court. They
are a joke and a fraud.  Groucho Marx would have a field day with
them:Harvard is to Law Schools what Kangaroos and Torture are to Law.

Francis A. Boyle
former Chair, HLS Fund Campaign for Greater Illinois

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----

From: nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com [mailto:nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com
<mailto:nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com> ] 

Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 4:27 PM

To: undisclosed-recipients

Subject: [NYTr] Watada: Kicking JAG's Can of Worms Down the Road

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

sent by Francis A. Boyle - Mar 5, 2007

Lt. Watada: Kicking JAG's Can of Worms Down the Road

by Francis Boyle

On 16 January 2007 the military judge assigned to preside at Lt.
Watada's

general court-martial Lt. Col. John Head ruled in relevant part that his

attorney Mr. Seitz could not question the legality of the Bush Jr.

administration's war against Iraq at the trial. It became obvious that
the

Pentagon was planning to railroad Lt. Watada by means of kangaroo court

proceedings. The primary obstacle to doing this was that the Pentagon
had

brought charges against Lt. Watada that made it impossible to exclude

arguments about the legality of the war at his general court-martial. It
was

a self-inflicted Catch-22 for the Pentagon.

When the court-martial opened on February 5, the Judge Advocate General

(JAG) lawyers put on evidence before the military jury that directly
raised

the issue of the legality of the war and in a manner favorable to the

defense of Lt. Watada. In addition, Mr. Seitz did a brilliant job at

cross-examination of the witnesses produced by the JAG lawyers in order
to

bring out before the military jury the relevance of the legal arguments
to

Lt. Watada's defense and in a manner favorable to Lt. Watada. After the
JAG

lawyers had closed their case for the prosecution, the Judge then
engaged in

improper questioning of Lt. Watada as to his position on the legality of
the

war before he took the witness stand. Lt. Watada made it perfectly clear

that in his forthcoming testimony before the military jury he was going
to

state that the reason he did not deploy for Iraq was that he believed
the

war was illegal. When after repeated such badgering Judge Head could not

shake Lt. Watada from his determination to so testify, the Judge then

declared a mistrial. Lt. Watada walked out of the courtroom a free man.

The Judge realized that he had lost control of the railroad; that these

legal arguments had already gotten to the jury in a posture favorable to
Lt.

Watada; and that Lt. Watada would forcefully and credibly explain to the

military jury that the Iraq war was illegal and why. Consequently, there
was

a good chance that the military jury would acquit Lt. Watada on one or
more

or all of the charges remaining in the case. The Judge pulled the plug
on

the JAG prosecution because he realized that if Lt. Watada was acquitted
on

any of these charges, which was quite likely, it would be a great blow
to

the Pentagon, to the Bush Jr. administration, and to the continuation of
the

Iraq war.

To avoid this donnybrook, the Judge invoked a pretrial factual
stipulation

as a pretext to declare the mistrial. Judge Head quite disingenuously
argued

that Lt. Watada had somehow stipulated to his own guilt before the
opening

of the trial. In other words, that Lt. Watada and Mr. Seitz did not

understand the nature of the pretrial stipulation that they had signed.
Of

course this argument was preposterous. Lt. Watada, Mr. Seitz, the JAG

lawyers, and Judge Head knew exactly that he was stipulating to facts
only,

and not to criminal intent, which remained to be determined by the
military

jury.

Despite the Pentagon's public protestations to the contrary, under no

circumstances was Judge Head motivated to protect the due process rights
of

Lt. Watada when he declared the mistrial, which he had already
grievously

violated by means of his ruling on 16 January excluding all arguments as
to

the legality of the war. But at that point in the court-martial, the
main

problem with the Judge declaring a mistrial was that since the JAG case
was

closed and Lt. Watada was about to testify on behalf of his own defense,

criminal jeopardy had already attached and thus a second prosecution of
Lt.

Watada would be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth
Amendment

to the United States Constitution: "...nor shall any person be subject
for

the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..." Judge
Head

was fully aware of these constitutional consequences of declaring a

mistrial. But as the Judge undoubtedly saw it, the non re-prosecution of
Lt.

Watada would be a lot better for the Army, the Pentagon, the Bush Jr.

administration, and the continuance of the Iraq war than a defeat for
them

all by the military jury acquitting Lt. Watada on any of the charges. In
any

event, Judge Head decided to kick JAG's can of worms down the road.

The mistrial of Lt. Watada was a great tribute to his personal courage,

integrity, and principles. It was also a great triumph for the courtroom

skills of Eric Seitz. And it further demonstrated the power of
International

law, the United States Constitution, the Laws of War, and U.S. Army
Field

Manual 27-10 (1956) for opposing the Bush Jr. administration's ongoing
and

threatened wars of aggression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran,

Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and elsewhere around the world.

*

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