Dear RNC: we at the @CatoInstitute make no apology for our amicus brief in Al-Marri v. Spagone ...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. 2007: JAG Officer Takes on His Bosses Over Guantanamo Detainee

FLORIDA BAR NEWS

JAG OFFICER TAKES ON HIS BOSSES OVER GUANTANAMO DETAINEE

August 1, 2007 Regular News

JAG officer takes on his bosses over Guantanamo detainee

Gary Blankenship
Senior Editor

To hear Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles D. Swift tell it, he didn’t do anything special.

As a judge advocate general officer, he only represented Salim Ahmet Hamdan, one of the former drivers for Osama bin Laden and one of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In representing his client, he challenged in court his bosses, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush, on the legality of the military commissions they set up to hear cases against the detainees.

He took the challenge, with help from a law professor and a law firm, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court – and won ( Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. ____, 126 S.Ct. 2749 (2006)). The court ruled that the commission violated not only the Geneva Convention, to which the U.S. is a signatory, but also the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Two weeks after that decision, Swift, who besides his law degree has a master of litigation degree with high honors, learned he had been passed over for promotion. Under the military’s “up-or-out” policy, that meant his 20-plus year military career was ending.

{snip}