Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Talkback Live

Is it Fair to put Al Qaeda Before Military Tribunals?; Do inmates have a right to procreate from prison?

Aired March 21, 2002 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville. Is it fair to put captured members of al Qaeda or the Taliban before military tribunals? The ACLU and Amnesty International say no. We'll find out what they're worried about in just a minute. And, of course, I want to hear from you on that. Give me a buzz. 1-800-310-4CNN. E-mail: talkback@cnn.com.

Right now, though, let's take a look at the rest of today's show.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEVILLE (voice-over): Women who want children but don't want to break a nail raising them. You might have a "Mary Poppins" flashback. Two former nannies tell all about wealthy parents who treat their love-starved kids like accessories.

Also, a California prisoner sues. He wants to mail his sperm to his wife. Do inmates have a right to procreate from prison?

And what will the stars be wearing on Oscar night? Daryn Kagan goes through the closet of designers who want to dress them, and she's really getting into it. And guess what? So will we.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEVILLE: Yes, we will. And we'll talk to Ms. Daryn a little later this hour. But first, military tribunals for suspected terrorists. The fed secretary Donald Rumsfeld outlined a plan just about an hour ago, so let's get the details now from CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Arthel, the main message from the Pentagon is just because the process that they have put together for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists is different from both the military justice system and the civilian justice system, that does not mean it's unfair. At least that's the case they're making. They say it protects the basic rights of the accused, including the right against self-incrimination, a presumption of innocence, the right to see evidence, the right to have an attorney, a military attorney appointed, or they can even hire a civilian attorney, not that they have any resources to do that. And they say that this will be basically an open process except for the times when they need to close things down so that they can review classified material.

Now what concerns a lot of people is no real right of appeal. There is an appeal to a military review board, but unlike in either the military, the civilian system, you can't go through the U.S. courts all the way to the Supreme Court.

And some people are also concerned about the rules of evidence. The military panels will have wide discretion about what evidence they can allow, in some cases, allowing evidence that wouldn't be allowed in either a military or civilian court, things like documents where they can't establish a chain of custody, or in some cases, hearsay evidence that wouldn't be admissible in court.

NEVILLE: That's right. And Jamie, you know, there are detainees in Gitmo (ph) Bay, Afghanistan and inside the U.S., so who will this affect?

MCINTYRE: Well, this is an interesting point here. Nobody has yet been selected to face one of these commissions. And it would be up to the president to decide which people would be subject to it. Presumably, it would be people suspected of being senior al Qaeda leaders who might have been responsible for in some way planning the attacks against the United States. But that hasn't been determined. And it's possible that a very small number will actually face these military tribunals.

Also interesting, just because a suspect or an accused goes to the tribunal process or a commission process, even if he's found innocent, that doesn't mean necessarily that they would be released, because they may be held simply because they're still a combatant considered to be dangerous. And just being found innocent on a single charge might not be enough to win their freedom. So it's very uncertain about what's going to happen to these detainees, both the ones in Cuba and the ones still in Afghanistan.

NEVILLE: And if, in fact, these tribunals ever will take place anyway, and if, in fact, they'll be held at Gitmo (ph) Bay at the U.S. naval base there.

MCINTYRE: Well, there's some thought that they don't want to hold them in the United States because that might give the defendants some claim that they have access to the U.S. court system, the civilian court system. So it appears that the thinking at the Pentagon now is to hold these tribunals somewhere outside the United States, perhaps even on a military ship or in a location like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

NEVILLE: Right. Jamie McIntyre, thanks so much for filling us in this afternoon.

MCINTYRE: You are quite welcome.

NEVILLE: OK. And joining us now is criminal defense attorney Stanley Cohen. He currently represents clients suspected of having connections with al Qaeda. Also, trial lawyer, Michael Smerconish. He's the columnist with the "Philadelphia Daily News." Stanley Cohen, I'm going to start with you. You heard the rules. Are they fair?

STANLEY COHEN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Now the lynchpin of the adversarial system, whether it's a civilian court or military justice court of the rules of evidence -- forget about everything else -- the rules of evidence are designed to make sure that evidence that's introduced against an accused is not just information the government says, "Trust Us," is real, but it's reliable, fair, truthful, original, and protected prior to introduction. What we've got here is the government saying, "Trust us." We're going to just put willy nilly lots of stuff in front of these judges...

NEVILLE: So why don't you trust the government? Why don't you trust the government?

COHEN: Well, we know there have been more reversals in military courts and in civilian courts for evidentiary violations than any other single violation in the history of this country. Keep in mind there have been -- the United States government has admitted we had literally killed dozens of civilians in Afghanistan because we got bad information from people who had agendas. We got false information and false documents, and we relied upon them. Those are the very sources, the very people with political agendas that are now turning over to the government, we suspect, this information, which we can't trust. It's the bedrock of our system. The evidence has to be real, reliable, and you have to be able to confront it. And here, you're not going to be able to confront the evidence. And then the appeals process...

NEVILLE: Because it's so worn. So Michael Smerconish, what do you have to say about this?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, ATTORNEY: Arthel, it's good to be back with you. I don't like it either. You know why? It sounds too lenient to me. I mean, this is a heck of a lot more rights than anybody who died at the World Trade Center was given in their final hours on September the 11th.

Let me tell you what's really going on. These people are getting a jury. They're getting a jury trial. They're getting a lawyer. They're getting a presumption of innocence, and they're getting rights against self-incrimination. What else can we do? We don't want this to become a kangaroo court like the O.J. trial, for crying out loud. I say enough already.

COHEN: What are you afraid of? You know what's interesting about the...

SMERCONISH: What I'm afraid of? I'm afraid of Lance Ito on television.

COHEN: You know what's interesting? You talk about the right against self-incrimination. The people in Guantanamo Bay have been interrogated around the clock for three months now, and all those statements are going to be introduced at trial, because you're going to stand up and say, "Listen, it's the war. You can do this."

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: But Stanley Cohen, they're suspected terrorists. I mean, do we need to keep that in mind?

COHEN: You know what? It doesn't matter. When people are charged, whether they're being charged of being suspected terrorists or suspected killers, what it says is: Prove your case. Use the rules of evidence. Use the rules that are set out for everyone, including the guilty and the innocent, and prove your case. You don't turn around in midstream and change it.

NEVILLE: Well, they're presumed innocent. They're going to be presumed innocent. Let me get Bruce in this conversation.

Bruce, what are your thoughts.

BRUCE: Why can't the tribunals be, let's say, like Nuremberg after the second World War? I think where we're headed is more like what General Douglas MacArthur did to the Japanese because of the Philippines, a vendetta, and they never saw any trials, OK, and make it an international court, not like what we have in the Hague because we were attacked, but international jurists. There were people from all over the world in the towers. How about that?

COHEN: I think it's a great idea. I think since we've internationalized it, what are we afraid of? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) their day in court.

SMERCONISH: Stanley, I'll answer that question. I mean, you look at the headline yesterday. The presumed 20th hijacker, Mr. Moussaoui, is now facing the possibility of death, which I think is appropriate if he's convicted. The French are already saying, "Well, we may not cooperate with more investigation of terrorists if people are going to face death." Why should we in the United States have to bow to the French because they have a problem with the death penalty?

COHEN: Because we have treaties all over the world with every civilized nation that says just that, that we're not going to extradite people if we're going to put them to death. You know what's interesting about...

SMERCONISH: Well, it to the families of the World Trade Center.

NEVILLE: Let me let Michelle from Ohio get in on this.

Michelle, go ahead. You're on the air.

CALLER: Hi. Thank you very much. I would like to know why everyone is so concerned about these al Qaeda suspects when the people who have represented our country at wartime, they have not been treated half as well as these prisoners are. And if it's absolutely ridiculous. They took down two of our tallest buildings in America. What more do they have to do to us before we stand up and start taking care of ourselves? COHEN: I'm with you.

NEVILLE: Michelle, I agree with you.

And Pat, I want to hear your thoughts as well.

PAT: It's a real problem. Citizens from around the world were brutalized, over 3,000 killed. That's not playing by the rules. It's not a civilized nation that attacked us. And if our very way of life is being threatened, then we have to take the appropriate measures to respond.

COHEN: Absolutely.

NEVILLE: Absolutely. OK, you know what? We're going to continue this conversation in just a minute. And later this hour, you're going to meet two former nannies with the inside track on how some rich people raise their kids and treat the help. They say it's not always very pretty. And we'll find out about the nanny who was hired, not only to take care of the kids, but to keep the mom in line as well. We'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: And welcome back. We're talking with Stanley Cohen and Michael Smerconish about putting suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners on trial before a military tribunal.

And Stanley, before we went to break, I cut you off. Want to let you go ahead and complete your thought.

COHEN: Well, this is in response to the comment that your other guest spoke about but the French. You know, we either are going to follow the rules or we're not. We are signatures to international treaties with every civilized country in the world. I understand that people are very upset. I'm very upset over what's occurred. You can't just assume, number one, that everyone is guilty of everything.

No. 2, you can't just turn around and say, because we know everyone's a bad person, we're not going to give them their day in court, and we're going to set it up in such a way which guarantees their conviction, and we're going to tell the French and everyone else to go shove it because we don't like you. You either do play by the rules, which people have given their lives to defend for 50 years, all over the world if not for hundreds of years, or you don't.

People have sacrificed their lives to protect the foundations of our system which talk about fairness and justice and equality. And if you're really going to do it right, you got to stand by it no matter how painful or difficult or rhetorical the rhetoric may raise on the other side.

NEVILLE: OK, Stanley, OK, Stanley, Blake is going to jump in here now.

BLAKE: Well, I don't think it has a thing in the world to do with international treaties. We're not at war with any country. We're at war with a group of people that want to kill us by their own stated admission. And so international treaties, the Geneva Convention, and those things probably don't apply. And I think the military tribunals are a pretty good effort in our country to treat these people fairly who have certainly not given any of their victims any say so in whether they lived or died.

NEVILLE: Michael.

SMERCONISH: Arthel, if I could just respond to Stanley's comment about the French, and maybe this is me responding more as an American and less as a lawyer, but look at the French. We bailed them out in World War II. They don't let us fly over their country for the Libyan bombing raids. They keep a man who murdered a college co-ed from Philadelphia named Ira Einhorn (ph) in their midst for about four or five years. And now they say to us, in the aftermath of the greatest act of terrorism in the history of the world, "Hey, we really don't like you subjecting this gentleman to a death penalty if he's convicted." I say, give me a break already.

COHEN: It's not just the French. It's the British, it's the Spanish, it's the Germans, it's the Italians, and it's the Israelis who we have treaties with who say, "You know what? We're not going to extradite people to your country if you give them the death penalty because we don't allow for it."

SMERCONISH: That's not true.

COHEN: It is true.

NEVILLE: OK, Carolyn. You can jump in there, Carolyn.

CAROLYN: Well, my concern is the damage to America as a nation of laws and not of men. We have the Constitution. We have the Geneva Convention. Why do we need to create those whole new hybrid thing? It reminds me of Banana Republics. You know, you go out and you kill people randomly or you kill people with flimsy evidence.

COHEN: Absolutely.

CAROLYN: This is not a good thing for America.

NEVILLE: And you agree with that, sir? Let me come on over there and get you to stand up for me and voice your opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I spent 20 years in the military, three years in Southeast Asia, and I don't care about nothing they're doing right now to all this. We have been in war all the time, the blacks. And we stay at war. And you know why. So don't give me this stuff about Talibans and all this other myths.

NEVILLE: Thank you for your passionate comment.

Stanley, even you are silent. You don't have anything to say to that, do you? COHEN: I don't have anything to say. I think what both of your speakers have just said rings and resonates true. There are rules. You don't change the rules. You have to stand by them whether you like them or not. That's what the democracy and that's what the system is about. It may be painful but that's what it's about.

SMERCONISH: Arthel, the pendulum in this country...

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Stanley, let me say something.

COHEN: Let me just say one thing. Why are we afraid of the military justice system that's in place right now that they don't even want to use? They want to appoint civilians and make the military judges with these tribunals. We've got a military justice system in place that's worked for a long time, that's very effective, but we're ignoring it now as well.