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Another Amicus Brief Filed in Support of Petitioners in al Bahlul v. United States

Jane Chong
Monday, August 18, 2014, 7:04 PM
This morning Steve summarized the amicus brief he co-authored on behalf of the National Institute of Military Justice in support of the petitioner in al Bahlul v. United States.

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This morning Steve summarized the amicus brief he co-authored on behalf of the National Institute of Military Justice in support of the petitioner in al Bahlul v. United States. Professor David Glazier of Loyola Law School has also just filed an amicus brief in support of petitioner, supplementing historical arguments he initially presented in an earlier briefing with Professor Gary Solis, contending that the military commission trying Ali al Bahlul exeeded its lawful jurisdiction by trying him for conspiracy. From the brief:
Amicus respectfully submits this brief to expand the previous analysis on why the Define and Punish Clause does not permit al Bahlul’s trial by military commission, to address the Article III issue, and, more specifically, to explain why the key examples relied upon by the en banc opinion, the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial and supporting legal opinion of Attorney General James Speed, the 1942 Nazi Saboteur trial, and the 1945 spy trial of William Colepaugh and Erich Gimpel, are not credible precedents for the government’s arguments. Indeed, the Speed opinion actually provides explicit support for both of al Bahlul’s arguments.

Jane Chong is former deputy managing editor of Lawfare. She served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and is a graduate of Yale Law School and Duke University.

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