Scott Silliman | |
---|---|
Judge of the United States Court of Military Commission Review | |
Assumed office September 12, 2012 | |
Appointed by | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | William Coleman |
Personal details | |
Born | 1943 (age 79–80) |
Alma mater | University of North Carolina,Chapel Hill |
Scott Livingston Silliman [1] (born 1943) is a Professor Emeritus of the Practice of Law at Duke Law School,and Emeritus Executive Director of Duke Law School's Center on Law,Ethics and National Security. [2] [3] He was also an adjunct professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), [4] and at North Carolina Central University. [5]
Silliman earned a Bachelor's Degree,in Philosophy,at the University of North Carolina,in 1965,followed by a J.D. degree,in 1968. [2] [6] While there he participated in the ROTC program. Upon graduation,he began a 25-year career as a military lawyer,in the United States Air Force. When he retired,in 1993,he joined the faculty at the Duke Law School. He was the first Executive Director of Duke's Center on Law,Ethics and National Security,a position he held for 18 years.
Silliman was a military attorney,called to active duty as an U.S. Air Force judge advocate in 1968,and later a staff judge advocate (senior attorney) and,in his last assignments,the senior attorney for Tactical Air Command [6] [7] and later Air Combat Command. [8] [9] In 1993,he retired from the Air Force as a colonel. [9] [10]
Silliman is an expert on national security law, [11] [12] [13] [14] military law, [15] [16] [17] [18] and the law of armed conflict. [19] [20]
His views have been cited in various media,including by The New York Times , [20] [21] The Washington Post , [22] The Boston Globe , [23] The Christian Science Monitor , [24] Newsweek , [25] The Guardian , [26] NPR, [27] USA Today ,and the New York Daily News . In 2012 Silliman was appointed by then President Obama and later confirmed by the Senate as an appellate judge on the US Court of Military Commission Review,(USMCRC),a blue ribbon panel created solely to review rulings and verdicts from the Guantanamo Military Commissions. [2]
During the final part of the rescue of the crew of Maersk Alabama three of the four pirates retreated to the vessel's lifeboat,taking the Captain as a hostage,together with $30,000 from the ship's safe. [28] According to widely publicized accounts of the Captain's rescue,when snipers heard a firearms discharge,on the lifeboat,three snipers each killed one of the pirates with a single shot. It emerged,during the trial of the remaining pirate,that the Captain could hear the labored breathing of at least one injured pirate. During the trial Philip L. Weinstein said that an expert on firearms wounds who examined photos of the dead pirates said they had been shot 19 times. Weinstein argued that the SEALS had violated their obligations,under the Geneva Conventions,to refrain from further injuring enemy combatants,who were too injured to further participate in hostilities. According to Fox News Silliman defended the SEALs,stating that "the SEALs had to make the assumption that the Somalis were armed and a continuing threat. In other words,they were still combatants." [28]
An opinion Silliman offered on the guilt of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed,and his four co-defendants,in the 9-11 Guantanamo Military Commission triggered a civilian appeals court to overrule the USCMCR. [29] The civilian appeals court agreed with the defendants that since Silliman had voiced an opinion,in a 2010 telephone interview with the BBC two years before he was appointed to the court,that the five were guilty,that he was biased,and should have recused himself.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base,officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB,is a United States military base located on 45 square miles (117 km2) of land and water on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It has been permanently leased to the United States since 1903 as a coaling station and naval base,making it the oldest overseas U.S. naval base in the world. The lease was $2,000 in gold per year until 1934,when the payment was set to match the value in gold in dollars;in 1974,the yearly lease was set to $4,085.
Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi is a Sudanese militant and paymaster for al-Qaeda. Qosi was held from January 2002 in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps,in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 54.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a Tanzanian conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004,he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States,and was held until June 9,2009,at Guantanamo Bay detention camp;one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post,Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
David Matthew Hicks is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan,and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 until 2007.
Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS Cole and other maritime attacks. He is alleged to have headed al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf states prior to his capture in November 2002 by the CIA's Special Activities Division.
Omar Ahmed Said Khadr is a Canadian who at the age of 15 was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for ten years,during which he pleaded guilty to the murder of U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer and other charges. He later appealed his conviction,claiming that he falsely pleaded guilty so that he could return to Canada where he remained in custody for three additional years. Khadr sued the Canadian government for infringing his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms;this lawsuit was settled in 2017 with a CA$10.5 million payment and an apology by the federal government.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,548 U.S. 557 (2006),is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Geneva Conventions ratified by the U.S.
Morris Durham "Moe" Davis is an American retired U.S. Air Force colonel,attorney,educator,politician,and former administrative law judge.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base,also referred to as Gitmo,on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Of the 780 people detained there since January 2002 when the military prison first opened after the September 11 attacks,741 have been transferred elsewhere,30 remain there,and 9 have died while in custody.
Neal Kumar Katyal is an American corporate lawyer and academic. He is a partner at Hogan Lovells and the Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center. During the Obama administration,Katyal served as Acting Solicitor General of the United States from May 2010 until June 2011. Previously,Katyal served as an attorney in the Solicitor General's office,and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the U.S. Justice Department. As of 2022,he is a partner at Chamath Palihapitiya's Social Capital venture capital firm and a member of the board of Social Capital Ventures Inc.
Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul is a Yemeni citizen who has been held as an enemy combatant since 2002 in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He boycotted the Guantanamo Military Commissions,arguing that there was no legal basis for the military tribunals to judge him.
Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj,also known as Riyadh the Facilitator,is a Yemeni alleged Al-Qaeda associate who is currently being held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps,in Cuba.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has coordinated efforts by American lawyers to handle the habeas corpus,and other legal appeals,of several hundred of the Guantanamo detainees.
In United States law,habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international,and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution,including the right of petition for habeas corpus. In 19 February 2002,Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,et al. is the trial of five alleged Al-Qaeda members for aiding the September 11,2001 attacks. Charges were announced by Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann on February 11,2008 at a press conference hosted by the Pentagon. The men charged are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,Walid bin Attash,Ramzi bin al-Shibh,Ammar al-Baluchi,and Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi.
Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) is a multinational naval task force,set up in 2009 as a response to piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off the eastern coast of Somalia. Its mission is to disrupt piracy and armed robbery at sea and to engage with regional and other partners to build capacity and improve relevant capabilities in order to protect global maritime commerce and secure freedom of navigation. It operates in conjunction with the EU's Operation Atalanta and NATO's Operation Ocean Shield.
Benjamin Wittes is an American legal journalist and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution,where he is the Research Director in Public Law,and Co-Director of the Harvard Law School–Brookings Project on Law and Security. He works principally on issues related to American law and national security. Along with Robert M. Chesney and Jack Goldsmith,Wittes cofounded the Lawfare Blog. Wittes is also a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law. Wittes is a frequent speaker on topics of detention,interrogation,and national security,before academic,government,policy,and military audiences.
Detainees held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps have initiated both individual and widespread hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay,and camp medical authorities have initiated force-feeding programs.
The Military Commissions Act of 2009,which amended the Military Commissions Act of 2006,was passed to address concerns by the United States Supreme Court. In Boumediene v. Bush (2008) the court had ruled that section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was unconstitutional in suspending the right of detainees to habeas corpus. The court ruled that detainees had the right to access US federal courts to challenge their detentions.
Stephen Isaiah Vladeck is the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law,where he specializes in national security law,especially with relation to the prosecution of war crimes. Vladeck has commented on the legality of the United States' use of extrajudicial detention and torture,and is a regular contributor to CNN.
Besides teaching at the law school, he served as Executive Director of Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security from its inception in 1993 until July 2011, and now serves as its Director Emeritus.
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