- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
I think you are right on in your assessment that the Obama administration seeks to create the illusion of due process, only to legitimize the underlying policy of indefinite detention.
This is not a phenomenon that is new to the justice system of the United States. It reminds me of the Post Conviction Relief Act in Pennsylvania as it pertains to capital cases. Ostensibly in place to provide people convicted of capital murder, PCRA relief is rarely granted, and in the few cases it is, the PA Supreme Court, in stilted, poorly written opinions overturns the lower court. The PCRA process gives the illusion of justice, and lends a superficial legitimacy to a judicial process that is built on inequity.
However, like the Obama administration, it allows the powers that be to point to the "process" afforded individuals, albeit one that is substantively dysfunctional, and in most cases, pre-ordained. One word comes to mind when an Obama official says that even if a person is acquitted at trial the administration will likely still detain that person indefinitely: absurd. Sounds like a Kafka novel.
