Terror Trials in New York – a Crucible for the Criminal Justice System

By Ron Krock | December 2, 2009 at 6:11 pm

In a highly anticipated news conference on Friday, November 13th, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – 9/11 mastermind – along with four of his co-conspirators, would be tried in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, mere blocks from Ground Zero and nearly eight years after the deaths of his some 3,000 victims. Although a recent Marist poll of native New Yorkers puts approval for the venue at 45%, with disapproval at 41%, the announcement has drawn fire from both sides of the isle, with Republican leadership accusing the President and AG Holder of playing into the hands of “liberal special interest groups” at the expense of the American people, unnecessarily placing them in harm’s way while potentially exonerating the defendants, as well as critics on the left who lament the continued use of ‘modified’ military commissions for an additional five detainees. The caucus’ more conservative members, like Senator Jim Webb (D-WV), fear the trials will invite untoward disclosure of privileged information. Despite assurances from Holder that the administration will have sufficient authority to keep state secrets classified, critics remain unconvinced. Read the rest of this entry »

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‘Getting Tough’, All Over Again

By Ron Krock | November 20, 2009 at 10:44 am

In spite of what you’ve heard before, there isn’t any one ‘third rail’ in politics. If social security reform is the partisan lighting rod du jour, then immigration reform is a close second. Moreover, if Tom Barry’s piece in the November issue of the Review is any indication, it may well be gaining. Writing about a little-known area of law he calls ‘criminal-immigration’ whereby immigrants – legal and otherwise, convicted of non-violent crimes and possessing legal family members in the US – are sentenced to jail time in so-called ‘public-private prisons’ before their inevitable deportation. Part of a ‘get tough on crime’ mantra coming out of the Bush administration – and one the Obama White House has been reluctant to modify in the midst of an already thorny healthcare battle – these newly rebranded ‘criminal-aliens’ face sentences lasting anywhere from a few days to several years before deportation, thus effectively punishing offenders twice for the same crime. So much for the Fifth Amendment. Read the rest of this entry »

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