The Bush administration's extraordinarily unsuccessful attempt to engineer a series of show trials at Guantanamo is about to accelerate.

The Pentagon has declared the Guantanamo war crimes trials a national priority and will more than double the number of military lawyers assigned to them ... . [A]bout 108 uniformed military lawyers [will] be added to the prosecution and defense teams in the next three months.

You think this has nothing to do with the upcoming election? Then why, after warehousing "enemy combatants" (or whatever the administration is calling them today) for the last six years without a single trial, have trials (perhaps including death penalty trials) become a sudden priority?

Pressed for details on the timing, [Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas] Hartmann said, "I don't know that it always wasn't the No. 1 priority but I know that it was formally declared the No. 1 priority in the last two or three weeks" by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Is the administration orchestrating an election year reminder of 9/11 in a sudden rush to judgment at Guantanamo? (more ...)

At his arraignment today, Khalid Sheik Mohammed sang in court, praised Allah and said he welcomed the death penalty so he would be a martyr.

He has rejected his attorneys and says he wants to represent himself.

My shield is Allah most high," he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney .

Shades of Zacarias Moussaoui, who having been tried in federal court, is now serving life at Supermax. Moussaoui has a chance to appeal. If Mohammed stays on this course, he'll be dead. [Update below]

Alleged "9/11 Mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being arraigned today at Guantanamo. The ACLU is on scene and will be reporting.

The ACLU has committed $15 million to a joint project with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to provide adequate representation to Mohammed and other Gitmo detainees facing unfair trials under the Military Commissions Act.

Trial by military commission permit convictions based on secret evidence, hearsay, and evidence derived from torture – including waterboarding, a technique the government admits was used on Mohammed. [More...]

After years of isolation in detention at Guantánamo, is Salim Ahmed Hamdan competent to assist his lawyers in mounting a defense? His lawyers say he's not.

They say Mr. Hamdan has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo “boil his mind.”

A defendant who isn't competent to understand the proceedings or to assist in his own defense has a due process right not to be put on trial. But due process seemingly has little meaning at Guantánamo. Hamdan's lawyers want their client placed in a less restrictive setting until he's able to focus on his defense. The government's response is less a defense of Guantánamo than an indictment of the American prison system. (more...)

Jose Padilla has been shipped to Supermax in Florence, Colorado, known as Alcatraz of the Rockies. He'll be joining Ted Kaczinski, Eric Rudolph, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard "shoe bomber" Reid, OKC conspirator Terry Nichols and others. Padilla was convicted in August and sentenced to 17 years. He's got 13 years left.

Padilla attorney Michael Caruso said in an e-mail Friday that Supermax is "a living hell" where inmates spend most days in 7-foot-by-12-foot cells and have little contact with the outside world. Caruso noted that others convicted of supporting terrorism, such as the "Lackawanna Six" group in upstate New York, were not sent to the nation's toughest prison.

Caruso called the decision "yet another example of Jose being treated differently and in a more punitive fashion than others who have been accused of similar crimes. I genuinely fear that Jose's mental health will erode to an even greater degree."

More on the life awaiting Padilla at Supermax below:

It's strike two against the government in its misguided effort to convict six alleged terrorists charged in Miami with conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. The government's first attempt ended in a mistrial for the six defendants -- a seventh was acquitted. Hoping to overcome the embarrassment of blowing the prosecution of a case that Alberto Gonzales announced with great fanfare, federal prosecutors tried again -- and again the jury hung, producing a second mistrial.

The outcome isn't surprising, given the lack of evidence that the alleged terrorists had the resources or ability to launch an attack, and the strong suggestion in the evidence that they were goaded into making terrorism-related statements by undercover FBI agents. (more ...)

The Canadian press is doing a good job of covering the pre-trial hearings underway this week at Guantanamo. As I wrote Sunday, one pertains to Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, who was captured at age 15 and has been held ever since. The defense is targeting Omar's interrogations and scored a partial victory today in getting the judge to order that correspondence between the U.S. and Canada about Omar be turned over.

The other hearing is that of Afghan Mohammed Jawad. Jawad was 16 when he was captured. His hearing yesterday did not go smoothly.

The military's 90 page document outlining charges against all charged detainees is here(pdf).

The ACLU is monitoring the hearings. In related news, (no link yet, received by e-mail) the ACLU is filing a lawsuit today "to force the government to release un-redacted transcripts in which 14 prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody."

A must-read today: Russ Tuttle reports on the planned Guantanamo military commission trials in The Nation:

Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials are rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.

This is mind-boggling: Pentagon Chief Counsel William Haynes told Davis there can be no acquittals: [More...]

Yesterday, we noted that the U.S. will be seeking to execute six detainees at Guantanamo. Today, the AP reports that those executions may take place at Guantanamo, thanks to a 2006 Military Order (available here. (pdf)

Any executions would probably add to international outrage over Guantanamo, since capital punishment is banned in 130 countries, including the 27-nation European Union.

Conducting the executions on U.S. soil could open the way for the detainees' lawyers to go to U.S. courts to fight the death sentences. But the updated regulations make it possible for the executions to be carried out at Guantanamo.

That, of course, is what the Bush Administration wants: No oversight. As former Navy lawyer David Sheldon says, [More...]

What do we have here -- show trials just in time for the November elections, to help out the Republican nominee? (hat tip to reader Scribe.)

Military prosecutors will seek the death penalty for six detainees at Guantanamo.

Update: The ACLU says the system is flawed.

Via Sebastian Meyer: The U.S. reasoning for the 6 death penalty cases sought in Guantánamo is based on the Geneva Conventions, the very document the U.S. claims does not apply in this case.

Update: The Center for Constitutional Rights which represents one of the six designated for execution is challenging the validity of military comissions and use of torture evidence in death penalty cases.

Congrats to Michigan lawyer Bill Swor, lead counsel for Jose Padilla co-defendant Kifah Jayyousi. (Background on Jayysousi here and here.)

In yesterday's sentencing decision, the Judge found the terrorism enhancements applied to his sentencing guidelines, raising them to a range of 30 years to life. Bill had presented the defense sentencing case and the Judge ultimately departed downward and imposed a sentence of 12 years and 8 months.

Another mild rebuke to the Bush fear and terror machine.

In a blow to the Bush Administration which sought a life sentence, a Miami federal judge today sentenced Jose Padilla to 17 years, 4 months.

The judge factored in Padilla's "harsh" sentencing conditions.

'I do find the [prison] conditions were so harsh that they warranted conditions for sentencing in this case,'' Cooke told a crowded courtroom of attorneys, family members and media.