US Asks to Rewrite Detainee Evidence

http://www.truthout.org/article/us-asks-rewrite-detainee-evidence

Friday 20 June 2008

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by: The Associated Press

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The Jusice Department wants time to rewrite evidence against detainees before judicial review.
(Photo: Associated Press)

Washington - The Bush administration wants to rewrite the official evidence against Guantanamo Bay detainees, allowing it to shore up its cases before they come under scrutiny by civilian judges for the first time.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

(and our) misery. November can't get here soon enough.

Here's a parallel.

My wife wrote a term paper for a class. She fulfilled the requirements of the class, knowing what assumptions were permissible without justification (usually whatever was taught), and how close to proving her point was required. She got a good grade.

She had a "publishable paper" requirement for her degree prior to advancing to candidacy. It was suggested she use that term paper. But the assumptions of the reader would be different: The judges wouldn't just assume what was in class was good enough, and the standards of proof were different. Her 15-page paper needed revising for the new venue. It grew to 40 pages, with the arguments refocused from course-internal to discipline-internal, more solidly grounded in the literature, and points of view ignored in the course taken into account.

Same here. The Gitmo tribunals have one set of rules, allow some evidence and not others. You only need make a sufficient case under the rules to win. Change the rules, your sufficient case may suddenly be found to rely on inadmissible evidence, have to take into account different precedents or answer different procedural or legal objections. It's likely to be unknown to the government lawyers what evidenciary rules are--will the exclusionary rule be in effect? Hearsay? If the military tribunals take the need for classified evidence's being used in stride, would civilian courts need greater justification given the different backgrounds?