Stephen Karns

Last updated
Stephen P. Karns
Born
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater St. Mary's School of Law
OccupationCriminal Defense Attorney
Known forMilitary Criminal Defense
Children3
Website usmilitarylawyer.com

Stephen P. Karns is a Dallas-based civilian lawyer who specializes in defending U.S. military personnel in criminal cases in the U.S. military legal system. [1] In 2004, Karns represented U.S. Army Reserve intelligence analyst Armin Cruz at the latter's trial for his role in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Ghraib prison</span> 1950s–2014 prison in central Iraq

Abu Ghraib prison was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, located 32 kilometers (20 mi) west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison with torture, weekly executions, and poor living conditions. From the 1970s, the prison was used by Saddam Hussein and later the United States to hold political prisoners. It developed a reputation for torture and extrajudicial killing, and was closed in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Graner</span> American soldier convicted of prisoner abuse

Charles A. Graner Jr. is an American former soldier who was court-martialed for prisoner abuse after the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Along with other soldiers of his Army Reserve unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, Graner was accused of allowing and inflicting sexual, physical, and psychological abuse on Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, a notorious prison in Baghdad during the United States' occupation of Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse</span> 2004 American military scandal during the Iraq War

During the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the United States Army and the CIA committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape and the killing of Manadel al-Jamadi. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents caused shock and outrage, receiving widespread condemnation within the United States and internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey D. Miller</span> Retired United States Army Major General

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omar Khadr</span> Canadian former child soldier (b. 1982)

Omar Ahmed Said Khadr is a Canadian citizen 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of the Iraq War</span>

The U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. Putting this controversy aside, both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticized the prosecution of the war effort along a number of lines. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post-invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. As the war has progressed, critics have also railed against the high human and financial costs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bagram torture and prisoner abuse</span> Early 2000s torture by American soldiers in Bagram, Afghanistan

In 2005, The New York Times obtained a 2,000-page United States Army investigatory report concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. military personnel in December 2002 at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Bagram, Afghanistan and general treatment of prisoners. The two prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were repeatedly chained to the ceiling and beaten, resulting in their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners' deaths were homicides. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti</span> 2004-2017 United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti

The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of the French name, was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti that was in operation from 2004 to 2017. The mission's military component was led by the Brazilian Army and the force commander was Brazilian. The force was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police, supported by international civilian personnel, a local civilian staff and United Nations Volunteers.

The Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants, established in 2004 by the Bush administration's Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, is a United States military body responsible for organising Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) for captives held in extrajudicial detention at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba and annual Administrative Review Boards to review the threat level posed by deemed enemy combatants in order to make recommendations as to whether the U.S. needs to continue to hold them captive.

Specialist Tony Lagouranis is a former United States Army soldier, best known for having participated in torture as an interrogator during the occupation of Iraq. He was featured in the 2008 Academy Award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Swift</span> American attorney and Navy officer

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.

Starting in 2002, the United States government detained twenty-two Uyghurs in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The last three Uyghur detainees, Yusef Abbas, Hajiakbar Abdulghupur and Saidullah Khalik, were released from Guantanamo on December 29, 2013, when they were transferred to Slovakia.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi is a citizen of Saudi Arabia who was held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba from August 2002 to May 2018; in May 2018, he was transferred to Saudi Arabia's custody. He was the only detainee held at Guantanamo released during President Donald Trump's administration.

Majid Shoukat Khan is a Pakistani detainee who is the only known legal resident of the United States held in the Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp. He was detained after returning to his native Pakistan to visit his wife and was captured by Pakistani authorities, who handed him over to the CIA. In 2012, Khan pled guilty to conspiracy and the murder of 11 innocent civilians in the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia, and for the attempted assassination of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

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.

Abdul Wahid was a citizen of Afghanistan whose autopsy was held in the United States's Bagram Theater detention facility. He was beaten to death on November 6, 2003.

Colby Vokey is an American lawyer and former officer in the United States Marine Corps. He currently practices criminal defense law in his own private practice. He represents clients in all types of criminal matters, with particular emphasis on cases involving military law. Vokey earned the rank of lieutenant colonel and served as a judge advocate in the United States Marine Corps during 21 years of service to his country. His retirement from the Marine Corps became effective Nov. 1, 2008. During his military career, Vokey earned worldwide praise for his work ethic and integrity, based in part on his work for defendants detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who faced charges stemming from the war in Iraq.

The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) is a US non-profit international human rights organization based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1998, CJA represents survivors of torture and other grave human rights abuses in cases against individual rights violators before U.S. and Spanish courts. CJA has pioneered the use of civil litigation in the United States as a means of redress for survivors from around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States v. Jawad</span>

United States v. Mohamed Jawad is one of the military commissions convened under the authority of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

A number of incidents stemming from the September 11 attacks have raised questions about legality.

References

  1. U.S. Military Lawyer. Retrieved on 2007-07-02
  2. Intel specialist pleads guilty to Iraq abuse, Associated Press, 2004-09-11. Retrieved on 2007-07-02