User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/Guantanamo captive's habeas corpus cases/Re Guantanamo Detainee Litigation Docs/Doc 1302

__NOINDEX__ See User:Geo Swan/Stale drafts
 * NOTICE of Supplemental Proposal and Notice Regarding Government's "Encounters" with Exculpatory Evidence by ABDUL HAMID ABDUL SALAM AL-GHIZZAWI (Gorman, H.)
 * On 2008-12-15 H. Candace Gorman filed a "SUPPLEMENTAL PROPOSAL AND NOTICE REGARDING GOVERNMENT’S “ENCOUNTERS” WITH EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE" with regard to ABDUL HAMID AL-GHIZZAWI in Civil Action No. 05-cv-2378 (JB).
 * Gorman wrote :
 * {| class="wikitable" border="1"


 * ''"Counsel for Al-Ghizzawi engaged in a telephonic discussion with the DOJ attorney assigned to this case, Stephen Methany on December 9th and had a face to face meeting with Mr. Methany on December 10th 2008. As Mr. Methany advised that he had no authority to enter into any agreement of any kind the meetings did not prove fruitful for narrowing issues. However the meetings did highlight significant problems associated with the Government’s amended return, the Government’s proposed definition of exculpatory materials, and the Government's perceived obligations in regards to exculpatory materials. In addition, as the meeting between counsel took place prior to the hearing of cases consolidated for procedural matters, before Judge Hogan, counsel was surprised to learn at the hearing that the Government contended that it was reviewing materials in filing the Returns that counsel was told in her private meeting were not reviewed. This certainly calls into question the completeness of the Government’s efforts with respect to the Returns it is filing and more specifically the Amended Return it filed in Mr. Al-Ghizzawi’s case and the purported legal basis for holding Al-Ghizzawi in custody for nearly seven years."
 * ''"Counsel for Al-Ghizzawi engaged in a telephonic discussion with the DOJ attorney assigned to this case, Stephen Methany on December 9th and had a face to face meeting with Mr. Methany on December 10th 2008. As Mr. Methany advised that he had no authority to enter into any agreement of any kind the meetings did not prove fruitful for narrowing issues. However the meetings did highlight significant problems associated with the Government’s amended return, the Government’s proposed definition of exculpatory materials, and the Government's perceived obligations in regards to exculpatory materials. In addition, as the meeting between counsel took place prior to the hearing of cases consolidated for procedural matters, before Judge Hogan, counsel was surprised to learn at the hearing that the Government contended that it was reviewing materials in filing the Returns that counsel was told in her private meeting were not reviewed. This certainly calls into question the completeness of the Government’s efforts with respect to the Returns it is filing and more specifically the Amended Return it filed in Mr. Al-Ghizzawi’s case and the purported legal basis for holding Al-Ghizzawi in custody for nearly seven years."


 * ''"The government would like to limit exculpatory evidence to that evidence “which is encountered in developing the returns by the attorneys preparing them.” In regards to the Government's Notice Pertaining to Production of Exculpatory Evidence, counsel has learned in her face to face meeting that Mr. Methany, the Government counsel assigned to this case has, for whatever reason, as of yet made no attempt to actually discover any exculpatory materials in preparing the amended return and has relied solely on the documents that were given to him for preparation of the Amended Return. In other words counsel made no attempt to “encounter” any exculpatory evidence and the practice alluded to in the 11/20/2008 filing is apparently a practice whereby counsel is given a stack of documents and told to prepare a return (or an Amended Return) and counsel is under no obligation to look further."


 * ''"Again, as set forth above, this certainly calls into question the completeness of the Government’s efforts with respect to the preparation of the Amended Returns so far, which represents, of course, the purported legal basis for holding Al-Ghizzawi in custody for nearly seven years. Mr. Methany admitted in the meeting that not only did he limit his review to what was given to him but that he was not even aware of the underlying CSRT documents, nor did he review them if he was even aware of their existence (because they were not given to him) and that he made no attempt to look for any exculpatory or other information regarding the three individuals who made accusations regarding Petitioner or anything else for that matter."
 * }