[Grumpasaurus.com] Travesty of Justice

'Travesty of Justice'

Jose Padilla sentenced to 17 years in prison

Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.

Padilla, an American citizen, was taken on U.S. soil (with Ashcroft holding a press conference to announce the grab of the dirty bomber), held without charges for 3.5 years,¹ in solitary confinement, denied access to an attorney, and tortured.² I’ve mentioned this before.

Without even going to the elements of what appears on the surface to be a Thought Crime more than an actual crime, there is no conceivable way by which this trial could be imagined to have been fair or Padilla’s civil rights upheld. Any one of the elements above would be sufficient in a system still beholden to the rule of law to create a mistrial; taken together the are a nightmare of coercion, duress, and authoritarianism.

This verdict is a black eye on the Department of Justice, the prosecuting attorneys who did not resign rather than try this case, the judge, the judicial system, the media, the Bush administration, and America.

Just fucking embarrassing.

I’m sure my shame and anger will comfort Padilla while he’s in solitary confinement and on suicide watch for the next 17 years.

The Bush administration and the DoJ forwarded an argument in this case, and one that has apparently stood, that the President has the power to declare anyone - even a United States citizen - to be an enemy combatant and outside the jurisdiction of our system of laws. Again, I’ve talked about this before. Gentle reader, from the results of this case, you too could be deemed an enemy combatant. At any time. In any place.

I hope you like Uzbekistan. Or at least windowless rooms in hot climates. I also hope you aren’t too attached to your fingernails, skull, or skin.

1. Remember, the Bush DoJ held Padilla for more than 2 years in a Navy brig in order to keep him from the reach of US courts.

2. The tapes of Padilla’s interrogations have, naturally, vanished and could not be produced at his trial. Convenient, no?

http://grumpasaurus.com/2008/01/22/travesty-of-justice/