Lawrence Morris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colonel Lawrence J. Morris is a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

1 Academic career
2 Military career
- 2.1 Comments on the testimony of the witness known as "OC-1"
- 2.2 Accusations of violation of legal ethics
3 References

[edit] Academic career

Morris graduated from Marquette University's law school in 1982.^[1]^[6] Morris had previously earned a double major at Marquette in Political Science and Journalism.

Morris also studied at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, where he earned a Masters of Science in National Security Strategy.^[1]

[edit] Military career

In 1997 Lieutenant Colonel Morris served as the head of the Criminal Law department of the Judge Advocate General Corps School, which has full American Bar Association accreditation for its post-juris-doctoral graduate course that confers a Master of Laws degree (or LLM) to its graduates.

In early 2007 Morris was the Chief of Army Trial Defense Services, where he was responsible for the work and professional training of all uniformed Army defense attorneys as they represented soldiers accused of crimes under the UCMJ.^[5]He also served as a co-founder of the Law and Order Task Force in Iraq and received a Bronze Star for his service.

In the fall of 2007 Colonel Morris replaced Colonel Morris Davis as Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. Davis resigned after a public disagreement with Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the Chief Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority for the Office of Military Commissions. Davis had publicly called for Hartmann to resign.

In 2002, Morris was the head of the Army’s criminal law branch and was tasked with planning the first prosecution of suspected 9/11 terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal, back in 2002 “he proposed a high-profile public trial that would lay bare the scope of al Qaeda’s alleged conspiracy while burnishing the ideals of American justice.” His legal advice was disregarded by the Bush administration, which decided to interrogate terrorists in secret -- perhaps to gain critical intelligence necessary -- to prevent further attacks, rather than seek justice through high profile trials. Ironically, Morris has now been asked to finally conduct the trials.^[7]

Morris [has compared] the planned military trial of Mohammed and the five other defendants to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, where Nazi war criminals were prosecuted. Morris said that the tribunals would focus on laying out a comprehensive view of the suspect's connections to terrorism, demonstrating the "sophistication of the Al Qaeda operation" around the world. Morris had been assigned by the Army to oversee plans for military commissions following President George W. Bush's November 2001 announcement that the U.S. would try suspected terrorists in special tribunals. Morris said he had clashed with administration officials who wanted to restrict the legal rights given to detainees, including the right to defense counsel, the right to confront prosecution witnesses and the right to attend all trial proceedings. Morris had also written an August 2002 memo arguing that the government should open its prosecution of detainees with a group trial of senior Al Qaeda operatives. He said that doing so would expose the full extent of Al Qaeda's crimes and help explain to the world why the military commission system was necessary.

[edit] Comments on the testimony of the witness known as "OC-1"

The Toronto Star identified Morris as the Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions.^[2] Michelle Shephard of the Star quoted Morris's comments about the accidental release of unredacted testimony from a witness known as OC-1, prior to a hearing where the legality of Omar Khadr combatant status was to be considered.

Excerpts from OC-1's secret testimony seemed to contradict the Prosecution's earlier account that Khadr had been the sole survivor of an aerial bombardment that mortally wounded Green Beret Sergeant Christopher Speer.^[2] Morris commented:

“We’re confident that we’ll prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt once we get to the courtroom. That document has been disclosed at least three times over the past couple of years to the defence so there was nothing new or surprising in it.”

[edit] Accusations of violation of legal ethics

On March 17, 2008 lawyers for four Kuwaitis went to court to bar prosecutors from contacting their clients, and accused them of "violating legal ethics".^[8]^[9]^[10] MSNBC reported that Morris claimed he did not need the captive's attorneys permission, because they weren't yet officially the captive's attorneys for charges before the Guantanamo military commissions, because they hadn't yet been charged. MSNBC reported that the Kuwaitis' attorneys had filed a petition claiming Prosecution lawyers had met with their clients, and had warned them that their lawyers were jewish. MSNBC quoted Matthew MacLean:

"Are these prosecutors bound by the rules that are binding on all prosecutors everywhere? Or are these prosecutors going to be allowed to be cowboys, doing whatever they want?"