A few observations by an old court reporter ...

So, the attorney general of the United States wants to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in a federal court in New York City just blocks away from World Trade Center, where 3,000 people were murdered.

It ain't gonna happen. As Judge Judy would say, "Have you lost your mind?"

I'm no legal expert but I did cover a lot of federal trials as a reporter, including the trial of Hawaii's first big Ponzi schemer Ronald Rewald.  Rewald wasn't a terrorist but his case does have something in common with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's: they both involve secret classified evidence that can't be made public. Rewald had not only conned money from old ladies and pensioners, but also a couple of CIA agents. And he hoped his CIA connections would keep him from being prosecuted. They didn't. What happened was a trial within a trial with the secret evidence being introduced under the federal Classified Information and Procedures Act (CIPA). What documents eventually were released to the public looked like a child had gone mental with a black magic marker. I think I have a copy of one document where the only un-redacted part is the word "rutabaga."

I suspect that Sheikh Mohammed's trial would involve long, complicated, drawn out secret hearings involving CIPA. But dealing with classified information in a public trial may be the least of the government's worries.

I'm no lawyer but a few pre-trial motions for the sheikh spring to mind , not the least of which is a motion for a change of venue. They want to try the terrorists within a cab ride of the buildings they blew up? That will never happen. The government couldn't even try America's premier home-grown terrorist Timmothy McVay in Oklahoma City, where he blew up the federal building. His lawyers won him a change of venue to Denver.

More serious impediments to getting the sheikh to trial involve the "speedy trial act," which entitles a defendant to a speedy trial unless the defendant waives the right. I don't think any of the 9/11 terrorists have waived that right as they sat in Guantanamo Bay for years.

Then there's the little matter of "enhanced interrogation techniques" used to start the sheikh's tongue wagging. I seem to recall there also were no Miranda warnings issued to the terrorists and they did not get appointed defense counsel.

Ask yourself this: If a common bank robber was to be put on trial in federal court and the judge found out he had been he had been detained for years without a lawyer, possibly tortured and denied a speedy trial .. . would that judge let the trial go on? No way. And you can't say the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a special case, that a federal judge gets to change the  established rule of law simply because the sheikh is a very bad man.  Once the sheikh is in federal court, he' no different than a common bank robber and he enjoys all the legal protections that the bank robber does.

Either the case against the sheikh will be dismissed or interogation techniques and detainment for all future bank robbers is going to be very bleak.

It's crazy to try these 9/11 terrorists  in a federal court on American soil. They are illegal combatants and should go before military tribunals.

As that pre-eminent legal authority Judge Judy would say, "What a freakin' mess. Get me a gin and tonic."

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E-mail  Charles Memminger at cmemminger@hawaii.rr.com

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 8:48 am and is filed under " humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.