Thursday, July 07, 2011

Civilian Trials For Terrorists? Tell Eric Holder To Remember Casey Anthony...

...and ask him again if he's so damn sure he would get a conviction. Certainly the prosecutors in the Casey Anthony case were ( "I think I mouthed 'Wow' about five times," [prosecutor Jeff] Ashton said), as were 99% of the American people following the case.  David French over at The Corner:

For civilian trials, which result from real police work in peaceful America, the jury system is the best system we’ve got, regardless of individual (though notorious) anomalies. But given the choice between civilian juries and military commissions for captured terrorists, why choose the civilian jury?

The Obama administration has elected to try a Somali terror suspect in civilian court. The suspect, captured by American forces overseas, was interrogated for two months onboard a Navy ship, without Miranda warnings. This, of course, was the right thing to do. The last thing you want is to tell a suspected terrorist captured in his area of operations that he has right to remain silent.

But how will a jury react to this prolonged interrogation? What will they think of the nicely cleaned-up young man sitting in front of them as high-powered defense lawyers rail against the conditions of his confinement? What will they make of the evidence produced, not by a police investigation, but by military intelligence-gathering?

                                                                                                     
 Of course, what will happen when a high-profile terrorist is "Casey Anthony'ed" by a jury, and set free to jubilant cries of "Allah Akbar!!", with innocent blood still fresh on his hands? Will the American people give a Harvard-esque, Gallic shrug, pat Holder and Obama on the back, and say "better luck next time, old chaps"?

Or will they take it out on the leadership who decided this was the best way to handle the case? Put it this way: If the American people could force heads to roll over the Anthony verdict, would they? And what if the unavenged dead were not an unrelated child, but their neighbors, their friends, their relatives?

One would think Holder and Obama would rethink their strategy in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict (and, of course, the ever-present example of O.J. Simpson). But that would require them to re-examine their premises, which is one thing both our intellectually inflexible president and our stubbornly racist Attorney General.

So we go forward, and risk much for very little, save the egos of the liberal elite.  But apparently, it is our duty to suffer injustice so that they may continue to feel good about themselves...

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