Here's a simple proposal to break the impasse over how to proceed against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his colleagues: Press charges in both military commissions and in federal court. Call it the John Allen Muhammad model.
The 2002 D.C. area sniper case is strangely instructive in planning the trials of the Sept. 11 plotters. Recall that when Muhammad and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were captured, several of the jurisdictions in which they had killed people filed charges. Virginia authorities were allowed to proceed first and given custody, but the other jurisdictions held their cases in reserve. Maryland prosecutors pursued their case even after Muhammad and Malvo were convicted in Virginia. If by some fluke the Virginia trials had ended in acquittals, other states would have proceeded.
Continue reading Benjamin Wittes in The Washington Post…
(photo credit: Keith Burtis)
