AWOL, not the same thing as a vast criminal conspiracy

Adam Serwer makes an excellent point in response to Lindsey Graham's insistence that alleged terror plotters be tried in military courts. Specifically, that civilian courts are great for liquor store robberies, but not for terror trials. Actually, the opposite is true.

America's military lawyers are among the best at what they do, but unraveling international criminal conspiracies is not what they usually do. They deal with murders, assaults, thefts. “It runs the complete gamut," says Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice and Yale Law professor. "It’s everything from being AWOL to murder. The military justice system covers essentially any crime by a military person, doesn’t even have to be service-connected anymore," Fidell says. "You could get prosecuted in a court-martial for failing to pay your taxes."

What about liquor store robberies?

"I'm sure it's happened," Fidell says.

What about crimes of the kind of magnitude al-Qaeda represents -- an international criminal terrorist conspiracy?

"Never!" Fidell says.

In fact, military commissions are supplemented by legal expertise from the civilian world -- both from the Justice Department and military lawyers who also practice law in a civilian capacity -- in order to help the commissions function as a brand new legal system, precisely because of military lawyers' lack of experience in handling such cases.

Graham hinted at this issue in yesterday's hearing when he said that civilian courts would be appropriate for say, terrorism financing cases. Why? Because civilian courts deal with international criminal conspiracies, and military courts don't. Now Graham is, himself, the Senate's leading expert on military law. He is a former JAG lawyer. So he knows military courts aren't used to trying these cases and are in fact more used to trying "liquor store robbery" small crimes.