Professor Amann Comments on Terror Trials for KCBS

Professor Diane Marie Amann commented for KCBS news radio on a Washington Post report that the Obama administration may be leaning toward trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four codefendants charged in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks in military commissions rather than in federal criminal court in Manhattan as previously announced. 

In an interview given March 5, Professor Amann noted that many terrorism trials have taken place in federal criminal courts, without any security incident, and that defendants convicted in those cases now are serving life terms in federal Supermax prisons.  In contrast, no one is yet serving a sentence imposed by a military commission.  Moreover, even eight years after the establishment of military commissions, serious concerns remain about whether commissions proceedings can meet satisfy the fair trial tradition of American legal system.

Diane Marie Amann is a Professor at the UC Davis School of Law and Director of the California International Law Center at King Hall (CILC).  Issues related to post-9/11 detention, interrogation, and prosecution are a focus of her scholarship, with articles published in Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.