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Susan Jean Crawford (born April 22, 1947) is an American lawyer, who was appointed the
Convening Authority The term convening authority is used in United States military law to refer to an individual with certain legal powers granted under either the Uniform Code of Military Justice (i.e. the regular military justice system) or the Military Commissions ...
for the
Guantanamo military commissions ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...
, on February 7, 2007.
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...
Robert Gates Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by president George W. Bush a ...
appointed Crawford to replace John D. Altenburg. She had previously served as judge and chief judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (in case citations, C.A.A.F. or USCAAF) is an Article I court that exercises worldwide appellate jurisdiction over members of the United States Armed Forces on active duty and other perso ...
, Inspector General of the Department of Defense (appointed by George H. W. Bush), General Counsel for the Department of the Army (appointed by
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
) and Assistant State's Attorney for Garrett County, Maryland.


Education

*Diploma,
Mt. Lebanon High School Mt. Lebanon High School is a four-year, comprehensive high school located in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, with an enrollment of 1,801 students in grades 9–12 for the 2020–2021 school year. Its mascot is the Blue Devil. History The sc ...
, June 1965 *
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
, History,
Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineerin ...
, June 1969 * J.D.,
New England School of Law New England Law , Boston (formerly New England School of Law) is a private law school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded as Portia School of Law in 1908 and is located in downtown Boston near the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Fina ...
, June 1977


Judge on Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces

Crawford was an active judge on the
Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (in case citations, C.A.A.F. or USCAAF) is an Article I tribunals, Article I court that exercises worldwide appellate jurisdiction over members of the United States Armed Forces on active ...
(CAAF) from 1991 to 2006. She was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as a justice to the nation's highest military court in 1991 for a fifteen-year term. She served as its
chief judge A chief judge (also known as presiding judge, president judge or principal judge) is the highest-ranking or most senior member of a lower court or circuit court with more than one judge. According to the Federal judiciary of the United States, th ...
from 1999 to 2004. She is now a judge in senior status. Crawford was the lone dissenter in a case involving Senator-Military Judge-Colonel Lindsey O. Graham. In 2006, by a vote of 4–1, the CAAF found unconstitutional the dual role of Lindsey O. Graham as a senator (Republican from South Carolina) and as a reserve officer sitting as a military judge on the
Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals The Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals (AFCCA) is an independent appellate judicial body authorized by Congress and established by the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force pursuant to the exclusive authority under (a). The Court hears and ...
. Crawford, in dissent, contended that there was no constitutional error in Senator Graham's role, and that, even if there were, it was harmless. In the case in point, the military appellant Airman Lane had been unable to show he suffered any "actual prejudice." She also said that, if Congress thought there were a constitutional problem in Sen. Graham's service, it would have been free to take action, and it has not. The majority's opinion relied upon the Constitution's "incompatibility clause" in Article I, " saying that "no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in service." It also relied upon separation-of-power principles, primarily as discussed by the Supreme Court in ''
Buckley v. Valeo ''Buckley v. Valeo'', 424 U.S. 1 (1976), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on campaign finance. A majority of justices held that, as provided by section 608 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, limits on election expenditur ...
'' (1976) and three Supreme Court precedents from the 1990s dealing with appointments to military courts. Congress, Crawford wrote, "may well desire the synergism that would result from having a member of Congress serving as a trial or appellate judge in the military justice system."Ruling: senator cannot be military judge, too
SCOTUSblog.com, September 21, 2006 (retrieved October 13, 2006)


Negotiated Hicks' plea bargain

Crawford is reported to have directly negotiated the plea bargain of
David Hicks David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp fro ...
, an Australian linked with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, without any input from the Prosecution.


Guantanamo discussion

When speaking at
Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineerin ...
on April 27, 2007, Crawford said:
"Much of the media coverage and commentary has been negative, questioning our legal authority to hold detainees without a trial in U.S. Federal Courts," Crawford said. "Under the law of war, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are not held pending criminal charges. While detainees may be tried for violations of the law of war, there is no obligation to so charge them."
During the same presentation, Crawford said:
"One of the biggest problems at Guantanamo is that the detainees gain too much weight because we feed them so well." In response to a question as to whether she endorses the practice of extraordinary rendition and the CIA's kidnapping of foreign citizens in other countries, Crawford said: "Well, I don't think we always have the right to kidnap foreign citizens."
On October 10, 2007, Morris D. Davis, the Chief Prosecutor for
Office of Military Commissions ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, resigned in protest, concluding that: Davis criticized Susan Crawford as a cause of the problems in the Military Commissions process, through her mixing of convening authority and prosecutor roles and her use of closed-door hearings, which he considered unnecessary. Morris called for removal of the political appointees: Susan Crawford and William J. Haynes, and return of control to uniformed career military authorities in order to restore openness and fairness to the Military Commissions process. On August 9, 2008, William Glaberson wrote in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' about Crawford's role in the recent
Hamdan Hamdan ( ar, حمدان ') is a name of Arab origin of aristocratic descent and many political ties within the middle east and the Arab World, controlling import/export mandates over port authorities. Among people named Hamdan include: Given nam ...
conviction: In an interview with
Bob Woodward Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for '' The Washington Post'' as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a young reporter for ''The Washingt ...
published in ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' on January 14, 2009, Crawford responded to questions about why she had not referred the case of
Mohammed al Qahtani Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani ( ar, محمد ماني احمد القحطاني) (sometimes transliterated as al-Kahtani) (born November 19, 1975) is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's ...
, the so-called " 20th hijacker" of the
September 11th attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, to trial:
We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case or prosecution.... The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge o call it torture


Denied travel funds to Mohamed Jawad's military attorneys

Mohamed Jawad Mohamed Jawad (born 1985 in Miranshah, Pakistan), was accused of attempted murder before a Guantanamo military commission on charges that he threw a grenade at a passing American convoy on December 17, 2002. Jawad's family says that he was 12 year ...
was a detainee whose case was referred to the civilian court system, which dropped the charges against him and recommended that he be repatriated. His military attorneys requested funds to travel to Afghanistan to help aid in his repatriation. Crawford declined to fund their travel, since charges against him had been dropped. Eric Montalvo chose to travel to Afghanistan at his own expense to aid Jawad.


Replacement

Crawford retired in January 2010. In March 2010, retired Admiral Bruce MacDonald, a career Navy officer, was named as the convening authority for military commissions.


References


External links

* * * , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Susan J. 1947 births Living people People from Pittsburgh Bucknell University alumni New England Law Boston alumni General Counsels of the United States Army Women in the United States Army Reagan administration personnel United States Department of Defense officials United States Article I federal judges appointed by George H. W. Bush Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces 20th-century American judges 20th-century American women judges Guantanamo Bay attorneys