Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to They've got nothing.

They've got torture victims. That complicates everything.
Mary Anne — (archived)

"Fruit of the poisonous tree": Any evidence acquired through illegal means, or as a result of information acquired through illegal means, is inadmissible under American law.

The only evidence that will be admissible to try detainees is evidence which can be demonstrated as untainted, that is, obtained through lawful means, or which can be demonstrated as "inevitable discovery", something that could have been discovered through normal, if slower, investigation procedures.

We also have this annoying Anglo-Saxon tradition, "innocent until proven guilty".

It's easy to keep people locked up if one has no regard for one's own legal tradition.

Once the law has been dispensed with, it's easy to decide that prisoners have been rendered too dangerous by the bitterness they feel over their treatment to ever be released. Like keeping abused dogs in cages because we fear them. And once we can do that with "outsiders", it's that much easier to do the same with the next group of outsiders, even if they were formerly considered insiders. The law protects; just law protects everyone. Tyranny only protects those it likes.

We will have to find a way to treat these human beings the way human beings ought to be treated according to our own code of justice. If it means we must assume the risks of releasing people who would not have been convicted in any case, or even those whose conviction could have been secured had we obeyed our own legal code, these are the wages of our own negligence in allowing our government to continue to operate in such a lawless way.

Complicated? You bet. Dangerous? Oh, yeah.

We didn't have the courage to insist on justice when it was easier. Now that it will be even more difficult, we must.

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