Terrorist Trials in the Big Apple

[shrug] They'd have to resolve this one way or another, eventually. Why the clumsiness, by doing it in New York (an obvious, deliberate public-PR spectacle, and immediate tainting of any trial)?

From my point of view it will be nice to have it dealt with and I see no problem having the trial in NY, really no venue exists where he could avoid the 9/11 memory and sentiment. I will avoid the "justice!" or "he is not a criminal but a demon straight from hell" hyperbole though.

I cannot see how this is a good idea.

What if he is acquitted? If it is a true and fair trial, that cannot be dismissed as a possible outcome. Is he released from custody? If not, why not? What legal basis would remain if we are reverting back to terrorism is a crime rather than an act of war.

If he cannot be acquitted, then it is a show trial, not a true and fair trial and another form of perversion of the justice system.

AustinRoth's question is one that bothers me as well. Since KSM was waterboarded, it seems a strong possibility that there will be evidentiary issues, and some key data may not be introduced.

What happens if he's acquitted? I can't believe for a moment that could be at all a good thing for this administration.

Would those who worry about acquittal prefer to just not try him? Personally if he is acquitted I would assume he had about a 30 second life expectancy, and the attacker would get a slap on the wrist. To be honest this should have been long ago and we should not have tortured but sadly now we are paying the price for those mistakes but the bill will come due when we are ready to start acting like the country we say we are again. I suppose we could just embrace chucking that whole rule of law thing but I do not think that would benefit the nation. He was waterboarded and he talked, regardless of the outcome AQ will want him dead, if he is acquitted everyone will.

And, since the Obama & Co Legal Department is still using Bush administration military tribunals for others, why the inconsistency for this guy?

No way will he be acquitted. It won't happen. Guaranteed. We'll see Sarah Palin convert to Islam before that happens.

JS - then you are going with 'show trial'?

Let's just say the importance of due process here - in the eyes of the world is in our best interest. I can't see any possible scenario in which he would be acquitted, no how no way.

While I agree the whole business of waterboarding is a shameful chapter in our country's history, I also understand that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did plenty of talking before he was waterboarded.

If he were stunningly acquitted, where would he go? He's not going to be taken by any country in the world and would end up in "detention" -- with heavily armed military guards.

To answer the good "consistency" question, I am guessing they think they can convict KSM without bringing in any state secrets, while they do not think so with other prisoners.

The waterboarding is a red herring. He is being brought to trial, meaning the rules of evidence of a trial court apply.

Was he read his rights? Did he have access to an attorney before and during questioning? We already know the answer to those questions. So, there is a non-trivial chance that the courts would rule ALL statements he made inadmissible.

That is just one potential (and truly possible) outcome of many, many issues that any competent legal team will bring up. And this is going to be a wickedly high-profile case, so his defense team will be well stocked, I am sure.

That is why I still say this is a dangerous game. There is only one good result, conviction with a general opinion the court was fair. The likelihood upon a conviction of it being turned into anything other than an indictment of the U.S. not providing a fair trial, particularly in the Middle East and other less than friendly to us States, is close to 0.

And that will be used against us.

Anyone care to guess in advance what the U.N. will say about the trial?

The only justice this buttcrack deserves is being slow fed into a shredding machine.

It's a show trial. The guy should have just disappeared from the face of the earth not made into a celebrity.

What? Mohammed who?

What a silly argument. Is the trial of the brutal torture-rape-murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom here in Knoxville a show trial? Are the trials of any other high-profile murderer show trials - when EVERYBODY knows they are guilty? Of course, there was a possibility that scumbags like Lemaricus Davidson, the ringleader of the infamous Knoxville murders, could have been freed.

But that's how our justice system works.

If we really don't have evidence that KSM committed the crimes for which he is accused then why do we hold him in the first place? The reason we do is that we have evidence - long before he was waterboarded - that demonstrated his guilt in 9/11.

Remember why he was waterboarded, people. It wasn't to get him to fess up to 9/11. It was to get him to "fess up" to supposed connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. That's why he was waterboarded 187 times - he didn't fess up to any connections between Saddam and AQ because there was no connection.

Holding the trial in NYC is the right thing. Pantywetters on the right have no faith in the justice system. I do.

Pantywetters on the right have no faith in the justice system. I do.

Hear, hear!!

Thank you for saying it so clearly.

"Would those who worry about acquittal prefer to just not try him?"

I truly hope not. This trial will be the biggest of the century thus far - this generation's Nuremburg Trial.
I hope the outcome is the same - at the end of a rope.

Nah.... Better not do that. Don't want to give these clowns a "martyr's death" and help their cause any more than we already have with the waterboarding.

I know.... Let's just give them a daily bath in pig's blood. That ought to get the point across.

Why do I get an uneasy vision of Johnny Cochran chanting:

"If the turbin doesn't fit - you must aquit!"

LOL

Elrod -

And people who are known to be guilty get acquitted, too. Are you saying they don't, that no guilty person goes free?

GS -

It is no that I have no faith; it is that I do not have complete faith. There have been too many high-profile cases in our lifetime where obviously guilty people walked free.

You and Elrod are also ignoring the other issue I raised - there is no way this is not spun against us in the Middle East. None. Well, unless he is acquitted and set free.

Scylla and Charybdis.

...and the opposite as well. With the advent of DNA evidence, we are finding out the rush to justice was often just that.

Meanwhile white collar crime goes on unabated and with nary a guilty plea and forget sentencing.

There is always the risk of incompetence, but I don't believe they would even go to trial unless they had a slam-dunk case. As we know there are other levels of justice for those a global show trial could not guarantee success. We have military tribunals, or in the worst case we can provide the sort of justice only a bully could like: we have no evidence, but we will use our power to hold you forever if need be. We may even be guilty for creating the degree of hatred the prisoner has for us, but that is just further evidence to deny any opportunity for the prisoners freedom.

--[What if he is acquitted?]--

No worries mate. He simply walks of of the courthouse into the waiting arms of our lovable, forgiving, and, liberally biased, New York street population.

he will be ripped to shreds before he hits the bottom steps.

I think the words. "Bin Ladden you can kiss my white irish ass", comes to memory.

Yes, just realease him to the New York public.

Austin,
How is this any more of a "show trial" than whatever they were doing in Gitmo? In one case we at least attempt to be a nation of laws and in another case we just throw out the book and become like some dictatorship.

As for the risk of acquittal, that is always a risk. And obviously there are cases when the guilty go free (e.g. OJ Simpson). But if our justice system can be faulted as a whole, it isn't for letting too many guilty people go entirely free - especially at trial.

Father Time raises the community lynching (he doesn't call it that) as a likely response if he were freed. Frankly, I don't think they would free him even if a jury somehow found him guilty.

The bigger problem is finding an impartial jury. How can you possibly find an impartial jury in NYC? And without an impartial jury, you run the risk of an unfair trial. But again, very high profile murder cases run this same risk. We had to import a jury in from Nashville to try the Christian-Newsom case in Knoxville. But people in Nashville certainly heard about the brutal case too - just not as intensely, I suppose, as in Knoxville. Alas, the jury was "more impartial" than one convened locally.

I also think there is a cathartic effect of the NYC community being able to stare this monster down. Don't underestimate the power of a major jury trial to help an affected community take on a malicious offender. There's a reason we call it the "People v. xyz". Not only is it the state trying a defendant in a legal sense, it is also a chance for the community express its anger through the channels of law and justice. New Yorkers have not had that opportunity - it's just too bad that we didn't do this five years ago.

Actually, treating him like a common mass murdering thug would be both appropriate and would serve well in the larger fight against terrorism. No need for pig's blood. The execution of Saddam Hussein didn't make him into a martyr. The execution of KSM by a civilian jury would not make him into a martyr either - any more than torturing him to death at Gitmo.

There is a kernel of legitimacy in the mountain of idiocy that this decision constitutes.

The crime itself happened before we went to war. Precedents for trying it are the earlier attack on the World Trade Center as well as the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing and mass murder in that event.

Everything else is bad. They're hypocritical, decrying torture but using chosen suspects so well known for having been tortured. (And what will it say that these guys get a civilian trial of some kind, but the rest, what of them? Will this simply be a distraction and they won't resolve the Guantanamo situation any time soon, never mind obviously not on the schedule originally promised?) This was a cheap PR stunt. Holding it in New York was stupid emotionalism and an immediate basis for change of venue, obviously. To whom were the Obama people trying to appeal emotionally (which is what this is about, emotion and politics), and why? A show trial appeals only to the basest levels of emotion and people. Was this a (likely) anti-Bush "statement," a kind of corrupted Carter "high-minded appearance" stunt, to look like "repair and restoration of the reputation of the USA" after the evil Bush-Cheney stain on the natiion's reputation among far-left fringists here and convenient critics in Europe? This decision is inept, clumsy, looks like more flubbing play-pen stuff by elitists out of touch with reality and the public.

Good luck, they and the rest of us, now, sadly, will need it. Silly show trial, cheap PR stunt.