 | Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
Kevin M. Sandkuhler (born August 28, 1953, in Queens, New York) [1] is an American lawyer, and retired Brigadier General in the United States Marine Corps. [2] His 2003 memo expressing concerns about the US interrogation of terrorism suspects, released in 2005 after a declassification request by Senator Lindsey Graham, [3] received national [4] and international [5] attention.
After receiving his B.A. degree in history from the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1975, Sandkuhler was commissioned a Second Lieutenant via the NROTC Program. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California, where he served as a Fire Direction Officer, Platoon Commander and Adjutant. In July 1978, he was selected to attend law school under the Funded Law Education Program.
Sandkuhler attended California Western School of Law, in San Diego, California from 1978 to 1981. He received his Juris Doctor (Cum Laude) in May 1981 and was admitted to the Bar of the State of California.
Following the Naval Justice School, he was assigned to the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, CA. He served in a variety of judge advocate positions including Trial Counsel, Defense Counsel, and Deputy Staff Judge Advocate. In 1984 he was transferred to Okinawa and served with the 3d Force Service Support Group as the O-I-C of the Review Section and deployed to Korea as the senior judicial advocate for the 35th Marine Amphibious Unit. In January 1985 he was reassigned to Camp Pendleton.
At Camp Pendleton, Sandkuhler served as the Senior Defense Counsel within the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate. In November 1986 he became the Director of the Contracting Division, MCB Camp Pendleton and a contracting officer. In 1989, he was selected under the Special Education Program to return to law school and received a Master of Laws degree in Government Contracts from George Washington University in 1991.
Sandkuhler was then assigned as an Associate Counsel within the Office of Counsel at Marine Corps Systems Command. In 1993 he attended the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in June 1994. Subsequently, he was assigned to the Joint Staff, where he served as a Non-Proliferation Planner in the Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5). During Sept 1997, he was transferred to III MEF located on Okinawa, Japan and served as the Staff Judge Advocate for III MEF and 3d Marine Division.
Upon his return to the United States, he became the Director, Appellate Government Division (Code 46) at the Navy-Marine Corps Appellate Review Activity, Washington, D.C. In July 2000, he became the Chief Defense Counsel for the Marine Corps. [6] He was appointed a Brigadier General in July 2001. [7]
Sandkuhler is notable for his participation in discussions, in December 2002, of reports that interrogators from the Joint Task Force 160 and Joint Task Force 170 were using controversial interrogation techniques on the captives held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. [2]
Sandkuhler was the Marine Corps's Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of the Marine Corps when Alberto J. Mora, the Department of the Navy's General Counsel convened several meetings of the Navy's most senior lawyers after David Brant, the Director of the NCIS, drew Mora's attention to use of the questionable interrogation techniques by the Navy's tenants at Guantanamo. [2]
Regarding the threat to American GIs, if the controversial policies weren't rescinded, Sandkuhler commented: [8]
Comprehensive protection is lacking for DOD personnel who may be tried by other nations and/or international bodies for violations of international law.
Neal Katyal, the attorney for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, one of the Guantanamo detainees who faced charges before a Guantanamo military commissions quoted Sandkuhler and other senior military justice officials. [9] Katyal quoted Sandkuhler's comments on civilians in the Justice Department making decisions about how to treat America's captives, which would put Americans GIs at risk, if they were taken captive. According to Katyal, Sandkuhler pointed out the DOJ:
... does not represent the services; thus, understandably, concern for servicemembers is not reflected in their opinion.
| 2001–2006 | Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of the Marine Corps [10] |
|
| 2000–2001 | Chief Defense Counsel for the Marine Corps [10] | |
| 1994–1997 | Served in support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a Non Proliferation Planner in the Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policies [10] | Focussed on nuclear non-proliferation issues. |
Sandkulhler was called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee while it was considering replacing the military commissions the Executive Branch had created, which were subsequently struck down by the United States Supreme Court. [11]
Sandkuhler retired from the Marine Corps with the rank of Brigadier General. Following his retirement Sandkukhler went to work for Pinkerton Government Services. On January 29, 2007 Pinkerton Government Services announced that Sandkuhler had been appointed its new President and Chief Executive Officer. [10]
His personal and unit awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal [ citation needed ], Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Navy Unit Commendation, Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, and Sea Service Deployment Ribbon. [12]
The Judge Advocate General's Corps, also known as the "JAG Corps" or "JAG", is the legal arm of the United States Navy. Today, the corps consists of a worldwide organization of more than 730 commissioned officers serving as judge advocates, 30 limited duty officers (law), 500 enlisted members and nearly 275 civilian personnel, all serving under the direction of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army major general who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison, Camp Cropper, and Camp Bucca. He is noted for having trained soldiers in using torture, or "enhanced interrogation techniques" in US euphemism, and for carrying out the "First Special Interrogation Plan," signed by the Secretary of Defense, against a Guantanamo detainee.
Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) is a U.S. military joint task force based at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba on the southeastern end of the base. JTF-GTMO falls under US Southern Command. Since January 2002 the command has operated the Guantanamo Bay detention camps Camp X-Ray and its successors Camp Delta, Camp V, and Camp Echo, where detained prisoners are held who have been captured in the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere since the September 11, 2001 attacks. From the command's founding in 2002 to early 2017, the detainee population has been reduced from 779 to 41. As of June 2021, the unit is under the command of U.S. Army Brigadier General Lance A. Okamura.
Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway is an American military lawyer who has served as a legal advisor to the Office of Military Commissions. Thomas Hemingway was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force ROTC program, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in November 1962 after earning his undergraduate degree at Willamette University. Upon graduation, he took an educational delay and earned his doctor of jurisprudence in 1965 at Willamette University College of Law. Hemingway entered active service in November 1965. He has also been an associate professor of law at the United States Air Force Academy and a senior judge on the Air Force Court of Military Review. He is a current member of the state bar in Oregon and the District of Columbia, and has been admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States. He retired from active service in October 1996. General Hemingway was recalled to active service in August 2003 to fill the position as Legal Adviser to the Convening Authority in the Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions, Washington, D.C. General. He was replaced by Thomas W. Hartmann in July 2007.
Albert Thomas Church III is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy. Church served as on active duty for 36 years, retiring as a vice admiral in 2005. During his service he commanded two warships, the Navy's largest shore installation at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, and was the longest-serving budget director of the Navy (1998–2002). Church also served as the Naval Inspector General, during which time he completed a comprehensive review of interrogation techniques used by the Department of Defense in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is currently president of Prescient Edge Corporation, a US-based national security services and technology Firm.
John D. Altenburg Jr. is a lawyer for the U.S. Army and a retired major general. In December 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld named Altenburg as the appointing authority for military commissions covering detainees at Guantanamo. He resigned, effective November 10, 2006.
Alberto José Mora is a former General Counsel of the Navy. He led an effort within the Defense Department to oppose the legal theories of John Yoo and to try to end the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo, on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Of the roughly 780 people detained there since January 2002 when the military prison first opened after the September 11 attacks, 733 have been transferred elsewhere, 38 remain there, and 9 have died while in custody.
Charles D. Swift is an American attorney and former career Navy officer, who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay; Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court. In 2005 and June 2006, the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.
Rick Baccus is a retired Army National Guard Brigadier General. Baccus received a regular Army commission in 1974 as an Infantry Officer through the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program and immediately entered active duty. He is most noted for commanding the Guantanamo Bay detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2002.
General Graves Blanchard Erskine was a United States Marine Corps officer who led the 3rd Marine Division during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
The Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) is an organization created in early 2002 by the United States Department of Defense to conduct investigations of detainees captured in the War on Terrorism. It was envisioned that certain captured individuals would be tried by a military tribunal for war crimes and/or acts of terrorism.
Matthew Mark Diaz is a former active-duty Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) and Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAGC) officer in the United States Navy. In mid-to-late 2004, Diaz served a six-month tour of duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as deputy director of the detention center's legal office. Early in 2005 as LCDR Diaz was concluding his tour, he sent an anonymous greeting card to The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York civil liberties and human rights group. The card contained the names of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In July 2006, the United States government formally charged Diaz in a military court with five criminal counts related to the sending of these names, the most serious being that he intended to harm national security or advantage a foreign nation, a violation of the Espionage Act. In May 2007, he was convicted by a seven-member jury of military officers on 4 of 5 counts. He served a 6-month prison sentence and was dismissed from the military.
Susan Morrisey Livingstone is a former Acting U.S. Secretary of the Navy in the George W. Bush administration from January–February 2003. She was the first woman to become Secretary of the Navy in U.S. history. Livingstone played a role in the effort to end coercive and abusive interrogation tactics at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the time, as Under Secretary of the Navy, Livingstone oversaw a large management portfolio, which included lawyers in the Navy General Counsel's office and investigators at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who raised concerns about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
William James "Jim" Haynes II is an American lawyer and was General Counsel of the Department of Defense during much of 43rd President George W. Bush's administration and his war on terror. Haynes resigned as general counsel effective March 2008.
The United States Marine Corps' Judge Advocate Division serves both to advise the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) and other officials in Headquarters, Marine Corps on legal matters, and to oversee the Marine Corps legal community. The head of the Judge Advocate Division (JAD) is the Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant.
Peter M. Murphy is an American lawyer, and former senior legal advisor to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Murphy was the Commandant's legal advisor twenty years prior to becoming a partner with the legal firm of Holland & Knight. At Holland & Knight Murphy specialized in Government litigation.
Adolph McQueen Jr. is a retired United States Army officer who ultimately attained the rank of major general.
Mark S. Martins is a retired United States Army officer. He attained the rank of brigadier general in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. Martin's final position was Chief Prosecutor of Military Commissions, overseeing the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants.
Gerald L. Miller is a retired brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps.
