Navy Lawyer who won Hamaden case passed over for promotion.

According to Digby Lt Commander Swift, the navy lawyer who took the Hamden case to the Supreme Court and won, has been passed over for promotion to Commander by the Navy. He had a choice. He could do what the Navy wanted or he could do what the law demanded. He chose the Rule of Law, and the Navy is angry.

Read what he had to say to Chris Matthews:

"MATTHEWS: What about the charge made recently, just a couple minutes ago by Kate O‘Beirne of the “National Review,” that people who fight us who are not in uniform, who do not represent countries who are party to the Geneva Convention shouldn‘t be free riders? They shouldn‘t get Geneva Convention treatment. They should be treated like thugs.

SWIFT: Well, you know, if you‘re looking at it from that way, we have a lot of criminals here in this country. And to prejudge anyone that we capture outside the country as a thug, why are we having a trial in the first place? We‘ve already decided they were guilty.

What the Supreme Court said is you have the trial first, you use the procedures that are set up under international law, and then you decide whether they‘re a thug. You don‘t make the thug determination going in."

It's sort of strange that the conservatives only remember that you have to have the trial first when it is a conservative like Rep. Jerry Lewis being charged with a crime, and ignore it for anyone they don't like and want to smear. The lesson of Gitmo is that for their enemies, the trial not only doesn't come FIRST, their enemies get charged and found guilty without a trial at all.

Oh, and don't ask for an effective defense lawyer. Conservatives HATE defense lawyers! Especially effective ones like Lt. Commander Swift. But the Rule of Law requires them.