Try the 9/11 Conspirators in Both Federal Courts and Military Commissions?
That’s the proposal Benjamin Wittes makes in today’s Washington Post. Wittes says that by splitting the legal baby, by “charging the 9/11 case in both military commissions and federal court,” the Obama administration can satisfy political considerations on both sides of the aisle.
This is a path fraught with legal issues. The constitutional bar against double jeopardy would prevent a trial in one forum and re-trial in the other for the same actions. Wittes spells out his proposal in greater detail in this post at the Lawfare blog, and he acknowledges this risk. The same sovereign cannot try someone twice for the same crime and Wittes acknowledges that the “John Allen Muhammed Model,” named after one of the Beltway snipers, used the separate sovereigns doctrine in ways that do not apply to Guantanamo. The Beltway snipers were liable for separate crimes in Maryland and Virginia in a way that does not translate directly to the 9/11 conspirators.
Wittes recognizes these legal issues and proposes that federal prosecutors and military commissions prosecutors clearly separate the crimes they respectively charge.
I’d go further. The clearest way to make this work is not to “charg[e] the 9/11 case in both military commissions and federal court.” This proposal only works if you charge pre-9/11 conduct in an Article III court and the 9/11 attacks in a military commission.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment would prevent “charging the 9/11 case in both military commissions and federal court.” Federal prosecutors charged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed well before 9/11 for his participation in the Bojinka Plot, a plan to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean. To the extent that he and other 9/11 co-conspirators can be charged with crimes related to Bojinka or other pre-9/11 attacks, this would pass constitutional muster. Otherwise, this is a not an advisable course of action.
One Nation Under Double Jeopardy
The Senate is about to vote on Defense Department funding with an expanded federal “hate crimes” bill. This well-intentioned piece of legislation threatens to make violations of the fundamental right against Double Jeopardy a routine practice, as federal courts will now have the power to re-prosecute defendants for what are traditionally state crimes.
The House removed language that the Senate put in place to ensure that the “hate crimes” provisions did not stretch to encompass free speech, threatening to attach criminal liability to core rights of free expression.
This expansion of federal jurisdiction guarantees that high profile cases will be retried until a guilty verdict is obtained to satisfy political factions. This politicization of justice will only harm our courts and our freedoms. The Senate should vote down this threat to the fundamental rights of all Americans.
Now for some quick background reading:
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