The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift talks to reporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington in this June 29, 2006, file photo. Smith, who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, has reportedly been passed over for a promotion and will have to leave the Navy. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File)
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military's "up or out" promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander.
He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was Osama bin Laden's driver.
"It was a pleasure to serve," Swift told the newspaper. He added he would have defended Hamdan even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career.
What effect do you think this little bump-off will have on prospective future defenders in Bush's kangaroo court tribunals? What do you think are the chances that those defense attorneys will actually give it 100%, so that the defendants actually get a fair trial?
Not that they're gonna be fair trials anyway, of course, what with the admission of secret evidence that the defense can't try to defend themselves from and all...
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