Robert D. Rachlin is a

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

lawyer.Vt. lawyers represent Guantanamo detainees
'' WCAX'' He is a partner in Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC, the state's largest law firm, practicing in the firm's

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

office. Rachlin spent most of his legal career handling cases for business clients.

Guantánamo detainee clients

He volunteered to the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

, who originally were given no access to counsel. In landmark decisions from 2004 to 2008, United States Supreme Court decisions have upheld the detainees rights to ''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

'' to challenge their detentions before an impartial tribunal, rights to counsel, and rights to access to United States federal courts. In a 2006 interview Rachlin said:"Vermont lawyers represent Guantánamo detainees"
, '' Burlington Free Press'', April 13, 2006 Rachlin represented two clients who are Guantánamo detainees:

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

n Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane, an Algerian citizen, and

Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi Ghassan Abdallah Ghazi al-Sharbi is a Saudi currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 682. He graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univer ...

, from Saudi Arabia. Between August 2005 and April 2006, Rachlin made five trips to Guantánamo to see his clients. In 2006, al-Sharbi was one of the ten Guantánamo detainees facing charges before a

military commission Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bodie ...

. Al-Sharbi wanted to decline legal representation. Rachlin tried arranging for al-Sharbi to talk, by phone, with his parents, hoping they would be able to convince him to accept Rachlin's legal assistance and that of the military counsel assigned by the Department of Defense. In reply to the allegations against Ameziane as contained in the record of his Administrative Review Board, released in March 2006, Rachlin has said:

There's nothing here that shows that he so much as held a firearm or did anything against the United States -- he's one of those guys who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. There's nothing more here than guilt by association.Third Montrealer on detainee list at Guantanamo
''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'', March 10, 2006
mirror
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Rachlin serves as a faculty member of Vermont Law School. He is also a concert pianist and co-founder of the Vermont Chamber Group.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rachlin, Robert D. Guantanamo Bay attorneys Living people Vermont lawyers Year of birth missing (living people)