
Guantanamo judge rebuked, all orders over past 3.5 years vacated - torstenvl
http://www.abajournal.com/web/article/dc-circuit-says-guantanamo-judge-created-intolerable-cloud-of-partiality-and-tosses-his-rulings
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ComputerGuru
This article is missing some context about why the judge's application to be
an immigration judge (and not telling anyoke) was a bad thing. Taken from a
linked previous article:

 _Because the prosecution in the case includes people from the U.S. Department
of Justice—the same federal agency that oversees immigration courts—defense
attorneys are asking to throw out all of Spath’s rulings as tainted.

“Any disinterested party would question the impartiality of a judge who is
seeking employment from one of the parties appearing before him. It’s an
obvious conflict of interest,” Navy Capt. Brian Mizer, the current lead
defense attorney for al-Nashiri, told the Herald._

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gnode
Another missing piece of information (that confused me), is that immigration
judges are direct employees of the DoJ and thus part of the executive branch.
They preside over administrative proceedings conducted by the DoJ, rather than
judicial cases in an independent court, with the DoJ as plaintiff /
prosecutor, as is more conventional.

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rtkwe
> The chief defense counsel for the military commission raised concerns that
> lawyers’ attorney-client meetings were being monitored, leading al-Nashiri’s
> defense lawyers to seek more information. While their discovery motion was
> pending, a microphone was discovered in a meeting room, said by the
> government to be a nonfunctioning “legacy microphone.”

Oh don't worry we're not listening to you we used to do that but aren't now...
so could this affect previous trials, the potential that privileged
conversations may have been spied on by this 'legacy microphone?'

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ncmncm
In other news... Immigration court mass-hiring crooked judges.

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wil421
I wonder if Immigration Judges pay the best or have the easiest job. In my
experience long time government employees know the best paying jobs, best
paying agencies (or even state level work), and what will get them the best
retirement. They also know the jobs with the lowest amount of work.

~~~
Nasrudith
I think Immigrantion Judges are like sanitation engineers - they technically
have the same title but there is a massive difference in skills and
expectations - no offense to sanitation engineers but they don't exactly do
design work.

Judges have standards of impartiality and immunities. Immigration judges are
essentially more bueracrats than true judges - and it shows given documented
farcical proceedings like 3 year olds unaccompanied by representatives.

