Dahlia Lithwick makes the good point that the Administration, by going out of its way to keep cases seeking accountability for torture out of court, is making sure that torture will only become an issue in the trials of people in court for other reasons — like, say, knocking down the World Trade Center.
This Sunday, though, a military court is scheduled to reconvene and could issue a verdict in the trial of an army doctor, Ahmed Adel, accused of "public indecency" and "disobeying military orders" for conducting the test on Samira Ibrahim, a 25-year-old activist, and six other women.
Mr. Riley said he hoped that the jury would now focus solely on what he called the defense team's central issue in the trial: the credibility of the chief prosecution witness, Leonard Jenoff, and the lack of corroboration for Mr. Jenoff's claim that the rabbi hired him for $30,000 to kill his wife, Carol, 52, on Nov. 1, 1994.
The play vaguely casts the issue in the trial as freedom of inquiry and speech.
Garry Newlove's widow Helen, now the Victims' Commissioner Baroness Newlove, did not want to address the issue of joint enterprise in the trial of those prosecuted for her husband's murder.
In a recent ruling, Judge Frank said he believed that a crucial issue in the trial was the right of the patients and doctors to know about potential product defects.
(One issue in the corruption trial of Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, seems to have been her assumption that the First Lady of Virginia ought to live in a certain way).
The issue in the criminal trial of Arthur Andersen is not what happened, but what to call what happened.
