Tag Archives: unfair trials

One Man's Story

February 18, 2009 at 7:22 PM

“I am not asking to be taken at my word and to be released, although I very much want to go home to my family. All I am asking for is to be treated like every other person in the United States who is accused of a crime, including terrorism, and to be given a fair trial in an American court.”

These are the words of Ali al-Marri, a U.S. resident who continues to be held without trial since December, 2001, in the United States. He was arrested in Illinois and is currently held in a military facility in Charleston, South Carolina. The Bush administration accused al-Marri of being an al-Qaeda agent, yet in seven years failed to bring him to trial.

Al-Marri has said he was “subjected to brutal interrogation measures, including stress positions, prolonged exposure to extremely cold temperatures, extreme sensory deprivation, and threats of violence and death. Interrogators, for example, told Mr al-Marri that they would send him to Egypt or to Saudi Arabia to be tortured and sodomized and forced to watch as his wife was raped in front of him.”

Since 2003, Amnesty International has called for al-Marri to either be fairly tried in a U.S. federal court, or be immediately released. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear al-Marri’s case. President Obama ordered an immediate and “prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal basis for al-Marri’s detention.” Al-Marri remains detained.

And, as the New York Times reported yesterday in “Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas,” President Obama may not fully renounce all of the immoral, illegal and ineffective policies and practices of the past–including indefinite detention–that have harmed people like Murat Kurnaz and Maher Arar, and have failed to bring those responsible for September 11th to justice.

We can’t let the failures of the past continue.

Please write urgent letters to those reviewing al-Marri’s detention, calling for al-Marri to either be promptly charged and fairly tried in a U.S. federal court, or be immediately released. Addresses, bullet points and background are here.

And let President Obama know that effective, legal and ethical counterterrorism measures are the right way to ensure security and justice, and that an independent investigation is the right way to make sure the mistakes of the past are never made again.

CSI: Texas Style

January 26, 2009 at 5:24 PM

Larry Swearingen has received a stay of execution.  He was one of 14 prisoners scheduled for execution in Texas between the beginning of this year and early April.  (Of those 14, three – all African American – have already been put to death, and the other ten are all either African American or Hispanic.)

For Swearingen, forensic evidence that now raises serious doubts about his guilt seem to have swayed the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to put the execution on hold and allow him to file a further appeal in Federal District Court.  Several forensic pathologists, including the woman who conducted the victim’s autopsy, are now saying that the time of death occurred when Swearingen was in jail for some traffic violations,  so that he could not have committed the crime.

The 5th Circuit found both that Swearingen’s defense was deficient and that the prosecutors provided “false and misleading forensic testimony.”

An Impending Three-Month Spree

January 13, 2009 at 5:58 PM
Execution witness viewing room (c) Scott Langley

Execution witness viewing room (c) Scott Langley

Starting tomorrow (Jan. 14), Texas will embark on a three-month spree of executions in which 14 men (one of them white) will be put to death.  Later this year, perhaps as early as late April, Texas will probably carry out the 200th execution under Governor Rick Perry.  This is an appalling number, particularly given what we have learned about the flawed nature of our criminal justice and capital punishment systems.  Texas accounts for 9 of the 130 death row exonerees, the third highest total of any state, and another 5 men have been executed in Texas despite compelling evidence that they were innocent.

The 19 exonerations from DNA evidence in Dallas County don’t include anyone from death row, but it’s the highest total of any county in America, and is yet another piece of evidence that Texas justice doesn’t always get it right.

Of course, sadly, none of this is really big news, and it all fits in neatly with the violent, shoot-first-ask-questions-later stereotype that Texans often embrace – but it’s at odds with what’s going on in the real Texas.  Real Texans are usually genuinely concerned about justice, and about avoiding uncorrectable, fatal mistakes.  Governor Perry should take his cue from these real Texans, who in 2008 handed down the fewest death sentences (11) of any year since the death penalty was reinstated.  Now is not the time for a shameful and reckless pursuit of executions; now is the time for Texas politicians to finally acknowledge what everybody else already knows:  their death penalty has serious problems.

It's Not Complicated

January 13, 2009 at 4:01 PM

Again and again we’re told that closing Guantanamo is “complicated.” I don’t see what’s complicated about it. Flying a chunk of metal with people in it to the moon? That’s complicated. Following U.S. and international law? Not so much. Try the detainees in federal courts or release them. If they are tried and found guilty, then incarcerate them in the US. I’ll help build a special prison in my neighborhood. If they are found not guilty, then release them. I have a room for rent. The “complicated” rhetoric serves as a stalling tactic and a justification for the whole mess. I don’t buy it. As always, I’m open to being convinced by a logical argument, but the burden of proof is on those who claim it’s hard to follow the law.

Which brings me to Obama’s comments on investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by members of the Bush administration. Since when is  moving “forward” in tension with investigating and prosecuting people who broke the law? If we are going to move forward, then investigating and prosecuting crimes is exactly what we have to do. If we are going to move forward, Obama and Congress must commit this country to the rule of law.

As a New Yorker who saw the Towers fall, as an American who is ashamed that his tax dollars have gone towards murder and torture, and as a citizen of the world who wants his family and friends to be safe, happy and free, I am so, so very ready for those responsible for 9/11 to be held accountable, for those responsible for torture to be held accountable, and for a U.S. President to follow the law and uphold human rights. Is it really so hard to do the right thing?

Human Rights Made Whole

December 11, 2008 at 9:07 PM

Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly marked Human Rights Day by unanimously adopting the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR). This historic step fills in a crucial gap in the human rights framework; former High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has described the OP-ICESCR as making human rights whole.

But to the media this looks like U.N. inside baseball, and they haven’t so much as mentioned it. (ReliefWeb, a U.N. humanitarian information portal, covered it; and here’s AI’s press release.)

So what’s it all about? In a word, it provides a means for redress for violations of economic, social and cultural rights.

One way of dividing up human rights obligations is like this:

  • To prevent human rights violations from happening.
  • To stop human rights violations that are currently happening.
  • To offer redress for human rights violations that have already happened.

The Counter Terror With Justice campaign’s call to the Obama administration in its first 100 days is a good illustration:

  • announce a plan and date to close Guantanamo;
  • issue an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment, as defined under international law;
  • ensure that an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the U.S. government in its “war on terror” is set up.

That is, the call is to stop (close Guantanamo), prevent (ban torture), and begin to redress (set up an independent commission) human rights violations committed by the U.S. government in the “war on terror”. (You should, of course, sign the 100 days petition!)

Anyone who’s suffered a violation of his or her civil and political rights — like freedom of expression, freedom from torture, and the right to a fair trial — can file for redress with the United Nations. This is a matter of international law, and it empowers people in countries whose domestic courts won’t recognize their civil and political rights. That mechanism was established by the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1966.

But there’s never been an analogous system for economic, social and cultural rights — until yesterday. The OP-ICESCR finally provides a means for redress, under international law, for violations of the rights to water, food, health, housing, education and decent work.

This is a new tool for justice for refugees forcibly returned to North Korea and punished by starvation; for Roma children systematically segregated in Slovakia’s schools; and for poor families forcibly evicted from their homes in Angola to make way for new development projects.

Or, in other words:

For more, see the OP-ICESCR Coalition (which included AI).

Can the Death Penalty Cause Wrongful Convictions?

November 17, 2008 at 2:30 PM

Yes.  It happened most recently in Nebraska, where 6 men were sentenced to various prison terms for involvement in a murder they had nothing to do with, because some of them “confessed” after being threatened with the death penalty.  DNA tests have ultimately exonerated them all, revealing that, according to the Lincoln Journal Star, the state’s case was a “complete fiction” and “entirely fabricated.”

The death penalty is often touted by prosecutors as a useful tool for convincing suspects to confess or to plead guilty.  Here, it is clear that the results can just as easily be false confessions or erroneous guilty pleas.  As with torture, the information obtained by this approach is just not reliable.

Threatening someone with the death penalty is no more a useful tool for eliciting an accurate confession than torture, and it is just as odious, immoral and flagrant a violation of human rights.  And the fact that some investigators still believe they can rely on it is all the more reason to abolish it once and for all.