Yahoo! News - U.S. to Let Lawyer to See 'Enemy Combatant' Padilla
"It's so disheartening. They're throwing us a bone, as if we should be thrilled that they can now listen to our attorney-client conversations after my client's been held incommunicado, based on their say-so, for over a year and a half."
- Donna Newman, lawyer for accused "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla
My feelings on this matter are well known. It's a blatant abuse of executive power and flaunting of the Constitution to deny an American citizen due process. Whether we like him or not (and Jose Padilla hasn't even been charged with a crime, much less convicted of one by a jury of his peers), Mr. Padilla has a constitutionally-guaranteed right to a speedy trial, to speak with his attorney privately, and to be released if he is not convicted of a crime in a court of law. The Bush administration has thumbed its nose at the Constitution in the first two cases, and will without a doubt turn Mr. Padilla over to a military tribunal if it fails to convict him in a court of law - a de facto case of double jeopardy, even if the framers of the Constitution never imagined such a process being devised to "work the edges" of legality.
Jose Padilla may very well be a bad man. Perhaps even a foiled terrorist. But that's for a jury to decide, not an elected official. George W. Bush does not have that power - no other branch of government besides the judicial must ever be given the power to pass judgment on an American citizen, or our Constitution will become a sham document.
We wish to "democratize" the world, but back at home we do shabby justice to our own Constitution and the citizens whose rights it was written to protect from the abuses of government.
What an embarrassment that so many Americans seem so damned content to accept this pathetic irony.
- Donna Newman, lawyer for accused "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla
My feelings on this matter are well known. It's a blatant abuse of executive power and flaunting of the Constitution to deny an American citizen due process. Whether we like him or not (and Jose Padilla hasn't even been charged with a crime, much less convicted of one by a jury of his peers), Mr. Padilla has a constitutionally-guaranteed right to a speedy trial, to speak with his attorney privately, and to be released if he is not convicted of a crime in a court of law. The Bush administration has thumbed its nose at the Constitution in the first two cases, and will without a doubt turn Mr. Padilla over to a military tribunal if it fails to convict him in a court of law - a de facto case of double jeopardy, even if the framers of the Constitution never imagined such a process being devised to "work the edges" of legality.
Jose Padilla may very well be a bad man. Perhaps even a foiled terrorist. But that's for a jury to decide, not an elected official. George W. Bush does not have that power - no other branch of government besides the judicial must ever be given the power to pass judgment on an American citizen, or our Constitution will become a sham document.
We wish to "democratize" the world, but back at home we do shabby justice to our own Constitution and the citizens whose rights it was written to protect from the abuses of government.
What an embarrassment that so many Americans seem so damned content to accept this pathetic irony.
posted by Bob at
10:29 PM
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