PaulWallLibertarian42
TNPer
Harvard Law professor David Barron is a former acting assistant attorney general in the Obama administration. While in President Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel he wrote memos justifying the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen abroad.
Last year, the president nominated Barron to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a vote on his nomination is expected this week. I am going to fight this nomination, because I believe Barron has disqualified himself from serving as a federal judge.
I've read the Barron memos concerning the legal justification for killing an American citizen overseas without a trial or legal representation. While the president forbids me from discussing what is in the memos, I can tell you what is not in the memos.
There is no valid legal precedent to justify the killing of an American citizen not engaged in combat. In fact, one can surmise as much because the legal question at hand has never been adjudicated.
The courts have examined due process rights of individuals actually captured on a battlefield, but no court has ever reviewed whether an American citizen can be killed without legal representation or a trial. That is precisely why I cannot support placing professor Barron on the appellate court.
I would much rather appoint a lifetime federal judge with heroic qualities, one who had the courage to tell the president that there is no legal precedent or constitutional authority for killing an American citizen not engaged in combat and that the Supreme Court should decide the question in open court.
Some will say that Anwar al-Awlaki was evil and deserved to die. I don't necessarily disagree with his punishment. I disagree with how the punishment was decided. American citizens not on a battlefield must be convicted before they are sentenced to death. Let me repeat that order for some who seem to have lost sight of our Constitution and basic human rights --- you must try and convict someone before you punish them. For further explanation, please refer to the Fifth Amendment.
For those critics not alarmed by granting the right to kill without a trial, realize that the decision to kill is sometimes based on metadata. You know the innocuous business records the government grabs up and tells us not to be concerned with?
A former National Security Agency official was recently quoted as saying, "We kill people based on metadata." I don't know about you, but I would prefer a significantly higher bar for determining guilt. At the very least, one would hope for a lawyer before your phone records are used to justify your execution.
Some will say that al-Awlaki wouldn’t come home for a trial. That's probably true. In that case, he could have been tried in absentia. If no trial occurs, if no legal defense is mounted, then due process does not exist.
The president can appoint a thousand lawyers to review the case, but a PowerPoint presentation on Terror Tuesdays is not in any way due process. Due process requires a legal defense, a trial and an independent judge.
When I meet the brave young men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country in the war on terror, I often ask them, "When you think of your defense of America, how would you describe it?"
Their response is important. They tell me they fought for what makes America exceptional -- our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Giving a lifetime appointment to a lawyer who believes that great constitutional questions can be decided in secret, by one branch of government, is a mistake. I wish Senator Obama would resurface to explain to President Obama how precious the right to trial is.
One of the most precious traits of our American republic is that even the most despicable of villains gets his day in court. I don’t want freedom for traitors, but I also don't want to give up on what separates us from them -- the rule of law.
America is not a nation that tolerates secret law.Secret and classified law that may lead to a death warrant from the president of the United States is obnoxious to freedom.
The Bill of Rights protects the right to a trial by jury and due process that a president cannot ignore.
If we make exceptions to the rule of law, ultimately the day may come that we will look back in regret and say, "In the rush to fight terrorism we lost the very freedom we were fighting to protect."
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
*Emphasis mine.
Source: Rand Paul: Barron Not Qualified For Fed Bench
Last year, the president nominated Barron to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a vote on his nomination is expected this week. I am going to fight this nomination, because I believe Barron has disqualified himself from serving as a federal judge.
I've read the Barron memos concerning the legal justification for killing an American citizen overseas without a trial or legal representation. While the president forbids me from discussing what is in the memos, I can tell you what is not in the memos.
There is no valid legal precedent to justify the killing of an American citizen not engaged in combat. In fact, one can surmise as much because the legal question at hand has never been adjudicated.
The courts have examined due process rights of individuals actually captured on a battlefield, but no court has ever reviewed whether an American citizen can be killed without legal representation or a trial. That is precisely why I cannot support placing professor Barron on the appellate court.
I would much rather appoint a lifetime federal judge with heroic qualities, one who had the courage to tell the president that there is no legal precedent or constitutional authority for killing an American citizen not engaged in combat and that the Supreme Court should decide the question in open court.
Some will say that Anwar al-Awlaki was evil and deserved to die. I don't necessarily disagree with his punishment. I disagree with how the punishment was decided. American citizens not on a battlefield must be convicted before they are sentenced to death. Let me repeat that order for some who seem to have lost sight of our Constitution and basic human rights --- you must try and convict someone before you punish them. For further explanation, please refer to the Fifth Amendment.
For those critics not alarmed by granting the right to kill without a trial, realize that the decision to kill is sometimes based on metadata. You know the innocuous business records the government grabs up and tells us not to be concerned with?
A former National Security Agency official was recently quoted as saying, "We kill people based on metadata." I don't know about you, but I would prefer a significantly higher bar for determining guilt. At the very least, one would hope for a lawyer before your phone records are used to justify your execution.
Some will say that al-Awlaki wouldn’t come home for a trial. That's probably true. In that case, he could have been tried in absentia. If no trial occurs, if no legal defense is mounted, then due process does not exist.
The president can appoint a thousand lawyers to review the case, but a PowerPoint presentation on Terror Tuesdays is not in any way due process. Due process requires a legal defense, a trial and an independent judge.
When I meet the brave young men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country in the war on terror, I often ask them, "When you think of your defense of America, how would you describe it?"
Their response is important. They tell me they fought for what makes America exceptional -- our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Giving a lifetime appointment to a lawyer who believes that great constitutional questions can be decided in secret, by one branch of government, is a mistake. I wish Senator Obama would resurface to explain to President Obama how precious the right to trial is.
One of the most precious traits of our American republic is that even the most despicable of villains gets his day in court. I don’t want freedom for traitors, but I also don't want to give up on what separates us from them -- the rule of law.
America is not a nation that tolerates secret law.Secret and classified law that may lead to a death warrant from the president of the United States is obnoxious to freedom.
The Bill of Rights protects the right to a trial by jury and due process that a president cannot ignore.
If we make exceptions to the rule of law, ultimately the day may come that we will look back in regret and say, "In the rush to fight terrorism we lost the very freedom we were fighting to protect."
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
*Emphasis mine.
Source: Rand Paul: Barron Not Qualified For Fed Bench
