military commisions

Military Commisions - Last week, NPR's Morning Edition ran a story about Guantanamo Bay sketch artist Janet Hamlin: "When secret military tribunals began in Guantanamo Bay, only one courtroom sketch artist was allowed in. She had permission. Her name is Janet Hamlin." This is not true at all.

Janet is a great artist and has done a great job of visually documenting the tribunals established under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. He recently published a book of his drawings, "Sketching Guantanamo, Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals, 2006-2013", a must-buy book. But I just want to make it clear that the first military commissions were established in 2004.

Military Commisions

It found that they violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions, and that the President had no authority to make them without Congressional authorization.

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So to be honest, when the secret military tribunals at Guantanamo opened in 2004, I was the only artist allowed in. Below are some of my sketches, never posted before - this was before I had a blog, made during my four days in Guantanamo in August 2004.

On top of Australian detainee David Hicks, his military lawyers have their hands behind his back. Hicks' parents are in the foreground on the left. If you're looking for a military commission "life," you've found one in John Cox, supervising paralegal for the Attorney General's Office and lead paralegal on the 9/11 case. Cox, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant, has shown the determination and patience it takes to seek justice for the worst attacks ever on American soil through more than a decade of fighting and complex prosecutions. He may have become a civilian paralegal in 2009, but Cox nevertheless points to the principle that Marines are trained to finish what they start - a reminder that he and his fellow prosecution are going nowhere.

Cox joined the commission in 2003 and has been involved in the September 11 trial since 2008, when the five defendants were first tried under the Bush-era commission system. The same five were indicted in 2012 under the Obama-era reformed commissions after attempting to block proceedings in Lower Manhattan federal court. All five face the death penalty for their alleged role in the attacks. As a supervising paralegal, Cox oversees a total of 29 paralegals, including members of the teams prosecuting Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, a separate death penalty case involving al-Nashiri in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. allegedly ex-Al Qaeda involved. Commander Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi faces a life sentence. Cox interviewed at the 34th pretrial session on the 9/11 case in March 2019.

As the largest criminal case in U.S. history, the September 11 trial has resulted in an unexplained and unclassified paperwork and discovery burden on the government. Providing discoveries to defense teams has been particularly challenging for the various administrations and agencies involved in the September 11 investigation and detention of defendants, including several years at CIA black sites prior to the September 2006 transfer to Guantanamo Bay. Chief prosecutor, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, praised Cox's leadership of the complex process when he presented him with the agency's "Award for Excellence" in June 2016, noting that the work of discovery had been presented "unprecedented in complexity and scope."

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You won't hear it from the understated caucus, who prefers to give credit to his peers, but the award calls him the "mainstay" of a team dedicated to seeking justice for the September 11 attacks.

“His leadership, unparalleled ability to find and solve problems, and endless support for others were exceptional,” the quote read. "Mr. Cox's achievement is in keeping with the highest ideals of the district attorney's tradition and reflects great credit upon himself, the Department of Defense, the Military Commission process, and the United States of America."

John Cox: When 9/11 happened I was in Okinawa, my second tour there. I arrived there in June 2001 for a three-year tour. We were locked because a storm was blowing. I remember being trapped in the house and we couldn't get out. When all this happened here at 9 and 10 in the morning, it was 10 or 11 at night there. We all saw it happen on TV, shocked.

I had actually given a package to extend my tour for another three years when the message went to the services, probably starting in 2003, asking paralegals to serve on military commissions. I said to my wife, "I want to do it," and she said, "Sure, wherever you go, I'll go." I have withdrawn my renewal package. I applied for it and got it.

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JC: Yes. Loved my first visit there as a 19 year old, 20 year old. When I went back the second time, I liked it even more. First, it was much improved. Two, I had a family. We went to the beach and saw and did everything. We liked it very much.

JD: I wanted to do my part. In Okinawa, we weren't drawn to go to Afghanistan, we weren't going to Iraq. Maybe a few people here and there. But I wanted to do what I thought was my job to help. I don't think you can make this right, but help bring justice to those who died on 9/11 and their families.

JC: I was a navy boy living in Signella, Sicily. Memphis; and San Diego. I graduated from high school in Chariton, Iowa, where I consider my home - a small town in south central Iowa. I joined the Army Reserves in 1987 and went through basic high school training in Fort Dix, New Jersey between my junior and senior years. I graduated from high school and tried to enlist in the military, but was told that the military wasn't hiring any of the reservists to active duty. I started talking to other recruiters. The Marines seemed to be the only ones willing to put in some work to get me out of the Army Reserve and into the Marine Corps. So I did.

My father was a naval officer and served in the marines in Vietnam. I know when I told my dad I was going to the Marine Corps his chin hit the ground because of his experience in Vietnam. He was with an artillery unit in Vietnam. He was at war and saw many bad things. I'm sure he was a little concerned about my joining the Marine Corps.

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LD: What got you on the paralegal path? Did you have any experience with the profession or the law?

I joined the Marine Corps on a permanent contract, which meant they could do whatever they wanted with me. They chose to make me a paralegal. I don't even know if I knew what a paralegal was back then - or if it was even a job, to be honest. I went to the Legal Services Specialist Course, which was then in Camp Pendleton, California. After that my first business trip was in Okinawa, and I stayed there for a year. I went to the military court, it is a public prosecutor. We did a court-martial and I thought it was really interesting - I was hooked from that point on.

LD: Between that first visit to Okinawa and your second visit there in 2001, were there any assignments before you joined the committee?

JC: My next station after my first Okinawa tour was at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, which was then an air station in the Bay Area. Since then closed. I was the unit's legal officer. We did everything from non-judicial punishment, where a commanding officer corrects someone's behavior but is not a formal punishment. I did other legal functions of the unit that showed up, like the chase, taking people to the brigade or taking people from the brigade to court. I also worked in the unit's administrative office, where I learned how to take orders, conduct correspondence, and perform all the administrative tasks that make a unit work. And I learned a lot about the Marine Corps there, where a lot of people were infantry - people who had a different outlook on life and the Marine Corps than our legal types. I also met my wife there.

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Then I did one of my tours in Camp Lejeune. There I was reviewing a court-martial, which is a review after a conviction. In a court-martial, immediately after the verdict is pronounced, the commanding officer - the one who convened the court, called the convening authority - must approve or disapprove the verdict. In this role you create all that content for him.