WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's administration is proposing some new rules for the military-commission trials at Guantanamo Bay -- including allowing judges to conduct pretrial hearings by videoconference -- to make the process more efficient.
The administration also is seeking to allow civilian government lawyers, instead of uniformed ones, to represent defendants; enable the primary judge to appoint a second judge to hear certain motions; and make it easier for the Pentagon to convert a death-penalty case into one that could result in imprisonment for life.
The Pentagon sent the proposal, which was first reported by The Miami Herald, last week to the House and Senate armed services committees. The administration wants to add the changes to the annual defense authorization bill, which it is preparing.
The draft legislation included rationales for the various changes. It would permit the judge to convene certain hearings via videoconference -- largely pretrial motions in which the "commission," or jurylike panel of military officers, is not required to be present, unlike trial testimony about the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Reducing the need for "all necessary participants" to travel to Cuba every time an issue was addressed would "provide flexibility."
A Section on 04/22/2016