Military commission to GWB: Up yours!

Hamdan gets five-and-a-half years, with five years’ credit for time served.

Or is there some other interpretation of a five-and-a-half-year sentence, with five years’ credit for time served pending trial, for someone the Bushies tried to paint as a major terrorist?

One one point I’m genuinely puzzled: does the Military Commissions Act repeal the Constitutional ban on ex post facto laws? Or how is it that Hamdan could be convicted under the “material assistance” clause for events that happened years before that clause was written into law?

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com