From: Dehede011@aol.com
Date: Wed Jan 01 2003 - 07:26:06 MST
In a message dated 1/1/2003 1:46:26 AM Central Standard Time,
mail@HarveyNewstrom.com writes: You need to look no further than the current
case of Zacarias Moussaoui who is currently on trial in federal court.
## Is this the character you have been touting as an American Citizen being
imprisoned on secret evidence? He is not an American Citizen, he may not
even be a legal alien. He has not been imprisoned as yet. He has been held
as a bad risk of fleeing our nation's jurisdiction. That is an old procedure
that goes back to our nation's beginnings and is used by almost every country
on the globe. But even then he is held by order of a judge after having his
day in court represented by an attorney.
Your other statements about secret evidence being withheld from the
prisoner and his attorney is exaggerated. The court has considered how it
might permit the evidence to be given, provided to the attorney and prisoner,
without letting it come into the public domain. Apparently this is nearly
impossible so the government is not allowed to use it at all. The government
is now considering the alternative of a military tribunal but still the
evidence will be still be provided to the defendant and his attorney. As I
have told you before that procedure goes back at least to the 2nd world war
to my certain knowledge.
"put him through a military tribunal with no involvement from the courts and
without giving any information to the courts"
## And once again you are wrong on all counts. A military tribunal is a
court. You can bet that a civilian court will have to rule on the legality
of transfering the defendents case to a military court before he can be tried
in the military court. In addition your statement "without giving any
information to the courts" is pure hyperbole. Military courts come under the
jurisdiction of what is called The Unified Code of Military Justice. The
UCMJ was passed by Congress in the late 40s and is a strict but fair set of
laws. Every person entering the military is lectured extensively about the
code upon entry. I passed a course in the UCMJ that went into even more
depth and lived under that code for over four years. So has every other
ex-serviceman under age of 70. I have read that studies show a higher
percentage of defendents beat the rap in military courts than in civilian
courts.
"The courts only know about this trial because it has already started in the
civil courts."
## I wonder what you think that means? Of course the military courts don't
know about the case directly because it hasn't come before them. Naturally
the officers of the military courts do read the news papers like the rest of
us so on that level they have heard of it. Someone can correct me if I am
wrong but I don't believe the guys that would try this case have even been
appointed yet.
"For future cases held in the secret military tribunals, the courts would not
even be informed that the event had occurred." Where did you ever get the
idea that we have such a thing as a "secret military tribunal?" The military
is almost always sort of strict but wonderfully open and direct. Everyone
around the trial area will know about the trial. Maybe someone can help me
with this also, I haven't studied the UCMJ for 45 years but Harvey says "the
courts would not even be informed that the event had occurred." Assuming
that Harvey means that the civilian courts would not even be informed of the
military trials after the first one, isn't it true that all military trials
come under the Federal Court system and can be appealed in Federal Court?
Ron h.
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