Obama subverts justiceFollow

You know, this is one of those times where you play "legal expert" and tell us all how the law works in direct contradiction to everyone who actually has some sort of legal authority. So, rather than waste my time debating the point with you, are you willing to place a wager on this? That the prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and that it will stand as a procedural matter rather than being struck down as unallowable?

Edited, Nov 18th 2009 9:41pm by Jophiel

For the attack on the WTC? I believe it wont be allowed to stand. They may very well seek the death penalty for the deaths of the passengers in the planes, and those in the Pentagon, but I don't think they can legally seek the death penalty for the people killed in the WTC towers.

Heck. It's possible that they can't even prosecute *any* charges specific to the loss of life in the WTC buildings. Prior to the Patriot Act, a killing, even a mass killing as part of a terrorist plot was not a federal crime. I'm not aware that the WTC was a federal building, unlike say the OK bombing (which was a federal crime). It was a civilian building, owned by private owners and the city of New York. Since this was not a federal crime at the time it happened, they can't be charged in federal court for those deaths. They can only be charged in the state of New York. Since the State of New York struck down their death penalty in the 90s (I believe), they can't face the death penalty for those charges.


That's not to say that screwier things haven't happened in our court system, but as I read it, they shouldn't be able to charge them for the attack on the WTC in federal court. At least not as it pertains to damage and death caused to the buildings and the people inside them. They can only charge them for the planes and the people inside them.


I'll certainly acknowledge that I'm not a legal expert. I could be missing something. How about we see how things unfold?

No, but murder and conspiracy to commit murder sure as fUCk were under certain circumstances. The feds can pretty much step in wherever they want to in reality.

Are you really concerned that he can maybe only be convicted of 500 murders instead of 3000? If your theorizing were accurate, which is pretty laughable.

Yeah, it does, if you intend to win your case.

Why do you think they'd play to lose?

Yup. And it's the "under certain circumstances" that is the tricky part.



Assuming the whole "gain" here is the sense that justice has been done, and that the reason this is being done in New York instead of say DC is because they suffered the most losses, then yeah, it might just matter to a whole lot of people that the deaths of the largest number of people didn't count in the final analysis. Didn't someone just argue about society gaining from this? I think so...

I'm going to take gbaji's lack of rebuttal as agreement with my last post.



If I keep telling myself something is logical, it is, right?

I wouldn't worry so much about their "status", Gbaji, as Presidents can make them up on the fly & change them at will.

& Obama didn't even set that precedent!

He'll get the death penalty, it's a forgone conclusion, & will score the Obama administration some political points that W wasn't able to cash in on 'cause of his obsession with Guantanamo Bay.

I think you're confused about who was "obsessed with Guantanamo Bay".

I think Jack Thompson would be pretty high up there.