NYT editorial on holding the trials on US soil:

A Return to American Justice

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. took a bold and principled step on Friday toward repairing the damage wrought by former President George W. Bush with his decision to discard the nation's well-established systems of civilian and military justice in the treatment of detainees captured in antiterrorist operations.

From that entirely unnecessary policy (the United States had the tools to detain, charge and bring terrorists to justice) flowed a terrible legacy of torture and open-ended incarceration. It left President Obama with yet another mess to clean up on an urgent basis.

On Friday, Attorney General Holder announced that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four others accused in the plot will be tried in a fashion that will not further erode American justice or shame Americans. It promises to finally provide justice for the victims of 9/11.

Mr. Holder said those prisoners would be prosecuted in federal court in Manhattan. It was an enormous victory for the rule of law, a major milestone in Mr. Obama's efforts to close the detention camp at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, and an important departure from Mr. Bush's disregard for American courts and their proven ability to competently handle high-profile terror cases. If he and Vice President Dick Cheney had shown more faith in the laws and the Constitution, the alleged mass murderers would have faced justice much earlier.

Republican lawmakers and the self-promoting independent senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, pounced on the chance to appear on television. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they said military tribunals are a more secure and appropriate venue for trying terrorism suspects. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former judge who should have more regard for the law, offered the absurd claim that Mr. Obama was treating the 9/11 conspirators as "common criminals."

There is nothing common about them or Mr. Holder's decision. Putting the five defendants on public trial a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center is entirely fitting. Experience shows that federal courts are capable of handling high-profile terrorism trials without comprising legitimate secrets, national security or the rule of law. Mr. Bush's tribunals failed to hold a single trial.

The fact that defense lawyers are likely to press to have evidence of abuse aired in court Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was tortured by waterboarding 183 times is unlikely to derail the prosecutions, especially given Mr. Holder's claim to have evidence that has not been released yet.

Regrettably, the decision fell short of a clean break. Five other Guantnamo detainees are to be tried before a military commission for the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of planning the attack.

The rules for the commissions were recently revised to bring them closer to military standards. And Mr. Holder cites the fact that the Cole bombing was an attack on a military target to justify a military trial. But that does not cure the problem of relying on a new system outside the regular military justice system. Nor does it erase the appearance that the government is forum-shopping to win convictions. Most broadly, it fails to establish a clear framework for assigning cases to regular courts or military commissions going forward.

From "A Terrosim Trial's Myths" by Andrew Cohen in The Washingtno Post (11/14/09):

It's not surprising that bringing one of the "faces of terror" [KSM] to within blocks of Ground Zero would generate a lot of fear, trepidation and political hysteria. So let's try to separate sizzle from steak. Here are six myths about Mohammed and his trial that ought to be destroyed:

One: Mohammed's lawyers are going to rely on the fact that he was waterboarded to get his case dismissed. Fact: Ain't gonna happen. Depending on who is running the show (Mohammed wanted to represent himself at his military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay), it's likely that the government's post-capture treatment of Mohammed will be a factor in the trial. But it won't determine the outcome, especially if the government does not seek to introduce any of Mohammed's post-torture statements to jurors. The fact that the feds are bringing him to New York to stand trial indicates that they have plenty of other evidence that they can use to get their conviction.

Two: Mohammed's judge won't be able to find an impartial jury. Fact: ...Judges and lawyers no longer even pretend that they are seating jurors who don't have preconceived notions about a case. All they ask of jurors is that they be able to set aside their pre-judgments and fairly evaluate the evidence shown at trial. Under this low standard, Mohammed will get a jury, and, after he's convicted, the jury's verdict almost certainly will be upheld on appeal if the defense challenges its fairness.

Three: Trying Mohammed in New York will significantly raise the risk of another terrorist attack there. Fact: No one can determine how big that increased risk would be. But New York has long been able to safely host trials of terrorism suspects -- including the trial that followed the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center -- and its security systems are among the world's finest....
(Continued...)

Four: The transfer of Mohammed to a federal civilian court is a concession of defeat by the government and a soft-on-terror approach to suspects. Fact: The Bush administration tried to prosecute these people in military tribunals but wasn't able to come up with a set of rules that were deemed constitutional. As a result, six years after Mohammed was apprehended, he still hasn't been convicted. A civilian trial is the best chance of ensuring conviction and sentencing. I don't consider that a defeat. I consider it progress. We are one step closer to the end of this guy's story. Remember, too, that the Republican senators who are crying loudest now about this civilian trial were the ones who precluded the use of military tribunals by insisting that they be constitutionally unfair to defendants.

Five: Mohammed will be acquitted on some technicality endorsed by a federal judge. Fact: After eight years of reporting on terrorism law, I am not aware of any judge, anywhere, who is eager to pervert the law to give Mohammed a break. The idea that the federal courts are soft on terrorism is unfair to the hundreds of jurists who have repeatedly endorsed government policy on terrorism, both before and after the 2001 attacks. Capital murder suspects get off on "technicalities" (read: constitutional rights) far less often than you see in prime time. And even if Mohammed is somehow acquitted, which isn't going to happen, the feds will then immediately pick him up and put him back in the military brig.

Even though I also think this should be a military trial, the decision to hold a pub;lic hearing has high-minded merit.

What better way to underline the incompetence and evil ways of the Bush Administration and the ignorance of about a quarter of the american population?

I hope he walks on a technicality. That'll give the tea-baggers just the drive they need to try to kill the rest of the original american philosophies.

I hope he walks on a technicality.

Yeah, lets hope a mastermind of 9/11 (by his own admission) walk to show the teabaggers whats what.

Yeah, lets hope a mastermind of 9/11 (by his own admission) walk to show the teabaggers whats what.

#5 | Posted by andyuhenet

See, a proud member of the 25% proclaims the government approved line of bullshit.

The mastermind(s) of the terrorists acts are the ones that gives money to the radicals so they can commit the acts of terror that they want to do anyway. Only problem for them is that it's tough to make a rocket out of camel dung in a cave.

Go take a nice long look around Syria, North Korea, Afganistan, etc.... Don't see too many rocket-launcher factories in those parts do ya?

So they have to buy them. Who sells the arms to them and where do they get the money?

I know this concept stretches your cognitive abilities a bit, but you can't have a war if you don't have an opposing force.

Oil companies need a war in the region so they can do what they need to do, sell oil to china.

If he gets off I'll blame Bush and all his supporters for using Terror in the first place.

Oops torture...

Blame everyone. How much are you willing to sacrifice for the luxuries of central heating and air conditioning and automobiles?

These things don't just appear out of the sky. They have to be manufactured and they have to run on some kind of fuel. That fuel soesn't just appear out of the sky either.

Our thirst for oil and the fact that we are the largest economy and military ever, means that we go take that fuel wherever it is. The people that live on top of that fuel see this as an act of agression. who wouldn't? So the oil concerns funnel them money and when they fight back, we say, 'see, they are terrorists, see them fighting'.