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CRS Report Comparing Rights in Military Commissions and Federal Courts

Raffaela Wakeman
Monday, May 14, 2012, 4:30 PM
Just in from the Congressional Research Service, this report compares the rights of defendants tried in military commissions to those tried in federal criminal court. Presumably because of the commencement of the military commission case against the five alleged plotters of the 9/11 attacks, the author, Jennifer Elsea, created two useful charts for a side-by-side comparison of the rules and procedural safeguards in federal court versus those in the commissions established by the 2009 MCA.

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Just in from the Congressional Research Service, this report compares the rights of defendants tried in military commissions to those tried in federal criminal court. Presumably because of the commencement of the military commission case against the five alleged plotters of the 9/11 attacks, the author, Jennifer Elsea, created two useful charts for a side-by-side comparison of the rules and procedural safeguards in federal court versus those in the commissions established by the 2009 MCA.

Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT. Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.

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