Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
October 16, 2007 Army colonel Lawrence J. 'Larry' Morris was named top Guantánamo prosecutor, and will replace an Air Force colonel who disputed his office's independence of Pentagon supervision.
By Carol Rosenberg
The Pentagon on Monday named a veteran Army colonel with a military intelligence as well as defense lawyer's background to serve as chief prosecutor for war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
He replaces an outspoken prosecutor, an Air Force colonel, who stepped down earlier this month in a dispute over his office's independence from Defense Department supervision.
Now Army Col. Lawrence J. ''Larry'' Morris will become the new prosecutor once he finishes his duties as chief of the defense trial team -- the uniformed Army officers who defend soldiers in courts martial and other military justice areas.
Morris is a 1982 graduate of Marquette Law School whose official biography says he was commissioned into the army as a military intelligence officer.
It also says that at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks ``he led the inter-service team charged with developing rules and strategies relating to trying suspects by military commissions.''
Morris currently runs the team of Army officers who defend soldiers accused of crimes as chief of the Army's Trial Defense Service. Earlier, he was the chief lawyer at the West Point military academy.
Air Force Col. Morris ''Moe'' Davis resigned the chief prosecution post earlier this month in a dispute over whether the legal advisor for the military commissions, an Air Force general, has the right to question case prosecutors and read their files.
That general, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, notified commissions staff of the choice of Morris on Monday but said it was unclear when he would take up the post because he was winding up his current duties.
Meantime, prosecutors and defense lawyers are preparing to go to the remote U.S. Navy base for a Nov. 8 military commissions session -- the arraignment of Guantánamo captive Omar Khadr, 21, of Canada, on a war crimes charge in the grenade killing of a U.S. Army Special Forces medic.
Khadr has been twice before tried -- and twice had his charges dismissed due to challenges to President Bush's war-crimes court, which the Pentagon set up in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to try war-on-terrorism captives neither in traditional U.S. civilian nor military courts.
The session will resume with a new set of supervisors at the top.
Hartmann recently took over the job as legal advisor, which has sweeping supervisory powers at the trials. He replaced Air Force Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who had overseen the Office of Military Commissions.
There is also a new chief defense attorney, Army Col. Steve David, who in civilian life is a reservist and an elected judge in the Boone County Circuit Court of Lebanon, Ind. He replaced Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has returned to civilian life.
The commissions have been controversial since their inception. Once shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional, the Bush administration championed legislation in the 2006 Republican-led Congress that revived the trials.
Only one captive has been convicted at a commission. He is Australian David Hicks, 36, who pleaded guilty to material support for terrorism as an al Qaeda foot soldier in exchange for serving out a nine-month sentence in his homeland. He is due for release by New Year's Eve.
The commissions are handling three active prosecutions.
None of the so-called ''high value'' captives once held by the CIA have been charged in the year-plus they have been at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
October 16, 2007 Army colonel Lawrence J. 'Larry' Morris was named top Guantánamo prosecutor, and will replace an Air Force colonel who disputed his office's independence of Pentagon supervision.
By Carol Rosenberg
The Pentagon on Monday named a veteran Army colonel with a military intelligence as well as defense lawyer's background to serve as chief prosecutor for war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
He replaces an outspoken prosecutor, an Air Force colonel, who stepped down earlier this month in a dispute over his office's independence from Defense Department supervision.
Now Army Col. Lawrence J. ''Larry'' Morris will become the new prosecutor once he finishes his duties as chief of the defense trial team -- the uniformed Army officers who defend soldiers in courts martial and other military justice areas.
Morris is a 1982 graduate of Marquette Law School whose official biography says he was commissioned into the army as a military intelligence officer.
It also says that at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks ``he led the inter-service team charged with developing rules and strategies relating to trying suspects by military commissions.''
Morris currently runs the team of Army officers who defend soldiers accused of crimes as chief of the Army's Trial Defense Service. Earlier, he was the chief lawyer at the West Point military academy.
Air Force Col. Morris ''Moe'' Davis resigned the chief prosecution post earlier this month in a dispute over whether the legal advisor for the military commissions, an Air Force general, has the right to question case prosecutors and read their files.
That general, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, notified commissions staff of the choice of Morris on Monday but said it was unclear when he would take up the post because he was winding up his current duties.
Meantime, prosecutors and defense lawyers are preparing to go to the remote U.S. Navy base for a Nov. 8 military commissions session -- the arraignment of Guantánamo captive Omar Khadr, 21, of Canada, on a war crimes charge in the grenade killing of a U.S. Army Special Forces medic.
Khadr has been twice before tried -- and twice had his charges dismissed due to challenges to President Bush's war-crimes court, which the Pentagon set up in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to try war-on-terrorism captives neither in traditional U.S. civilian nor military courts.
The session will resume with a new set of supervisors at the top.
Hartmann recently took over the job as legal advisor, which has sweeping supervisory powers at the trials. He replaced Air Force Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who had overseen the Office of Military Commissions.
There is also a new chief defense attorney, Army Col. Steve David, who in civilian life is a reservist and an elected judge in the Boone County Circuit Court of Lebanon, Ind. He replaced Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has returned to civilian life.
The commissions have been controversial since their inception. Once shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional, the Bush administration championed legislation in the 2006 Republican-led Congress that revived the trials.
Only one captive has been convicted at a commission. He is Australian David Hicks, 36, who pleaded guilty to material support for terrorism as an al Qaeda foot soldier in exchange for serving out a nine-month sentence in his homeland. He is due for release by New Year's Eve.
The commissions are handling three active prosecutions.
None of the so-called ''high value'' captives once held by the CIA have been charged in the year-plus they have been at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.