Quoted CrimProfs

Georgetown CrimProf Neal Katyal is quoted in this article from the Seattle Times.  In 2004, he successfully urged Seattle's largest law firm, Perkins Coie, to represent Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former chauffeur and bodyguard, who is accused of being an al Qaida terrorist and charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes. His case against the U.S. Government, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was heard by the Supreme Court this past Tuesday.  Hamdan, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, is slated to be tried for his conspiracy charge before a military panel in which the Defense Department will pick the judge and jury and forestall any chance for appeal to an independent body.  In Hamdan's case before the Supreme Court this week, Hamdan's defense argued that even if it turns out Hamdan is guilty, he should not be subjected to the laws of war unless he's afforded the protections of the laws of war.

Northwestern CrimProf David Scheffer's column is feartured in this edition of JURIST.  In his column, Scheffer says that the government's attempt to charge Salim Ahmed Hamdan with conspiracy to commit war crimes - a crime that does not exist under US or international law - falls short of a violation allowing him to be prosecuted before the President's military commissions and "demonstrates the folly of the effort to push the square peg of terrorism into the round hole of the law of war."

Northwestern CrimProf Ron Allen is quoted in this article from the Chicago Tribune about the government's corruption case against former Illinois governor George Ryan.  With speculation about a mistrial in the air, Allen comments on the considerable cost of a second trial. 

[Mark Godsey]