Fixing a Trial

The case of Jose Padilla is really starting to heat up. Recall Nate's discussion of the case posted here in January - and the case of the missing interrogation video referenced here, and here. Authorities made 88 video recordings of Padilla being interrogated during the 3 1/2 years he was held at the brig as an "enemy combatant," officials said. Eighty-seven tapes have been given to the defense, leaving only the last session unaccounted for. "I don't know what happened to it," Pentagon attorney James Schmidli said during a recent court hearing. The same judge, Marcia Cooke, who determined that Padilla is in fact competent to stand trial, also reprimands the prosecution severely regarding the one "lost" piece of video footage: U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost. "Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?" Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month. So, according to a federal judge, after 4 1/2 years of solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and overload, food manipulation, and perhaps many other abuses, Padilla's psyche has not been damaged. The effect of "lost" evidence by the prosecution - evidence that could be used to help the defense - is a verbal reprimand. Seems a bit unbalanced. Another disturbing part of this case comes from the same article: Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, is scheduled to stand trial April 16 along with two co-defendants on charges of being part of a North American terror support cell. When he was arrested in 2002, Padilla was initially accused of mounting an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, but the criminal case does not include those allegations. We hold a person since 2002 for a crime, then we decide to prosecute him for something different? Padilla, when finally brough to trial, is being charged with something much more vague than he was when arrested. Current charges are described by FOX News here: Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, is charged along with two co-defendants with being part of a North American terror support cell that provided money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremists around the world. Could this be any less specific? But enough digression; the reason this trial is so important is well-stated in this Nation article. The detainees in Guantanamo, along with an unknown number of other foreign "enemy combatants", are getting an indirect trial, because Padilla has the unique distinction of being an American citizen - he therefore is subject to Constitutional protections (even if it has taken 4 1/2 years for them to materialize). If Padilla's defense can somehow get their client released, it will deal a major blow to the Bush administration and their detention/torture policies. I've got my fingers crossed... I'm just not sure it will make as much difference as I hope it will.