Robert Preston (military lawyer)

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Major Robert Preston is a lawyer, and an officer in the United States Air Force.

Together with Captain John Carr and USAF Captain Carrie Wolf, Preston was among the military lawyers tasked to serve as prosecutors of the suspected terrorists imprisoned at the American Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. All three military lawyers requested transfers to other assignments because they had concerns that the proceedings would be innately unjust.

On August 1, 2005, the Australian newspaper, The Age published an article based on the leaked memos detailing their requests for transfer, and quoted Preston's:

I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people.

Surely they don't expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time.

...After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don't really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer.^[1]

The article quoted Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, another military lawyer, who served as a legal advisor to the Office of Military Commissions, who tried to dismiss the memos as based on simple misunderstandings. There was an official investigation, following which the Chief Prosecutor to whom the memos were addressed, subsequently resigned from the military.

In 2006, in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the United States Supreme Court found that the then-existing military commissions lacked "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions."