“The right to representation is for American citizens. This is an enemy combatant. They don’t have rights to civil trials.”
“Michigan Supreme Court candidate defends against terrorism claim,” By Dawson Bell for the Detroit Free Press, October 31 (thanks to Kenneth):
LANSING — A conservative legal advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., began a major TV advertising campaign Tuesday criticizing University of Michigan law professor and Michigan Supreme Court candidate Bridget Mary McCormack for volunteering to provide legal representation to terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay detention center.
The ad features the mother of a Flint soldier, killed in Afghanistan in 2010, decrying McCormack’s decision to “represent and help free suspected terrorists.”
“My son is a hero and fought to protect us,” Teri Johnson says in the ad. “Bridget McCormack volunteered to help free a terrorist.”
Liz Boyd, McCormack’s spokeswoman, called the ad “last-minute mudslinging by a special-interest group outside of Michigan” that “confirms what Bridget Mary McCormack has been saying about what’s wrong with judicial campaigns.”
“Bridget never represented a terrorist. She is the daughter of a Marine running to protect families and children,” Boyd said.
She did not deny, however, that McCormack had volunteered representation….
Sandler said McCormack volunteered to assist a group called the Center for Constitutional Rights in its effort to seek civil trials for terrorism suspects detained at Guantánamo.
Former state Rep. Andrew (Rocky) Raczkowski, an Army reservist who served two tours in Afghanistan and Somalia after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and who appeared with Sandler at a Lansing news conference, said he was outraged by McCormack’s actions.
Terrorist detainees captured on foreign soil are enemy combatants, not criminal suspects, Raczkowski said.
“The right to representation is for American citizens. This is an enemy combatant. They don’t have rights to civil trials.”
According to published reports, McCormack has been identified as an attorney for only one Guantánamo prisoner, a man from Tajikistan who was captured in Afghanistan and was accused of working with a terrorist group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Muqit Vohidov, who is known by several names, was transferred in 2007 to custody in Tajikistan and sentenced to 17 years in prison, the reports said.
It is unclear what role McCormack played in his case. But she told the Michigan Daily in 2007 that he had been transferred before she was able to obtain security clearances and travel to Cuba to meet him….
Too bad!