User:Geo Swan/review/Darrel J. Vandeveld

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Darrel Vandeveld (1961 (age 63)) is an American lawyer and an officer in the United States Army Reserve.

Vandeveld is notable for asking to resign from his appointment as a Prosecutor before a Guantanamo military commission.

Civilian life
Vandeveld is a resident of Erie, Pennsylvania. Prior to his Guantanamo hitch Vandeveld worked for the the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. The Bureau of Consumer Protection is a Branch of Pennsylvania's Office of the Attorney General. Vandeveld worked in the Erie, Pennsylvania office.

On December 2, 2008, the BBC News broadcast the Vandevelld's first interview following his resignation. According to the BBC local Erie papers praised Vandeveld for taking a stand on principles. On January 17, 2009, Vandeveld published an op-ed in teh Washington Post, entitled, " I Was Slow to Recognize the Stain of Guantanamo". In both his BBC interview and his Washington Post op-ed Vandeveld stressed the role his Roman Catholic faith played in realized the ultimate futility and injustice of prosecuting Mohammed Jawad.

On July 9, 2009, Vandeveld was called to testify before the United States Congress's United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that while this congressional sub-committee was usually lightly attended, the day Vandeveld and several other witnesses testified the hearing room was packed.

On February 27, 2010, Vandeveld was selected to serve as Erie County's Chief public defender.

Military service
Prior to his Guantanamo service Vandeveld served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Africa and Germany.

Vandeveld is notable for asking to resign from his appointment as a Prosecutor before a Guantanamo military commission. Vandeveld had learned that Mohammed Jawad, one of the five suspects he was assigned to prosecute, was a minor when he was captured, and he came to believe the confessions which were the main evidence against him were tainted by the use of death threats, torture and other abusive interrogation techniques. Vandeveld recommended that Jawad instead should be allowed to plea bargain, followed by immediate release to some kind of parole. When his plea bargain suggestion was rejected Vandeveld asked to resign. His superiors reacted to his request to resign by compelling him to undergo a psychiatric assessment.

According to the New York Times, officials confirmed on September 24 2008 that Lieutenant Colonel Vandeveld resigned over an ethical issue. Vandeveld is the seventh Prosecutor to resign from serving as a Guantanamo prosecutor.

Vandeveld was serving as a Prosecutor in the case of Mohammed Jawad, a Pakistani youth who was charged with participating in a grenade attack in a bazaar in Afghanistan where two American GIs and their interpreter were injured. Colonel Stephen Henley had been growing impatient with the Prosecution, and had given them a deadline to share evidence they had withheld from Major David J. R. Frakt which he suspected could prove exculpatory.

The BBC reports that the withheld evidence includes the confessions of two men who said they were the ones who actually made the attack.

Vandeveld's resignation was filed within the Military Commission system. The New York Times reported he had not commented publicly about his resignation. Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, quoted from Vandeveld's four page resignation memo :
 * {| class="wikitable" border="1"


 * “In my view evidence we have an obligation as prosecutors and officers of the court has not been made available to the defense.”
 * “it seems plausible to me that Jawad may have been drugged before the alleged attack.”
 * }
 * }

Frakt claimed that Vandeveld had recommended a plea bargain and an early release for Jawad, who was a youth when the event took place, and who had been subjected to coercive "enhanced interrogation techniques", including prolonged sleep deprivation in Guantanamo's frequent flyer program.

Frakt commented that Vandeveld: “could no longer continue to serve ethically as a prosecutor.”

Chief Prosecutor Colonel Lawrence Morris asserted :
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 * “...there are no grounds for his ethical qualms.”
 * “...there are no grounds for his ethical qualms.”


 * “All you have is somebody who is disappointed that his superiors did not agree with his recommendation in a case.”
 * }

According to Josh Meyers, writing in the Los Angeles Times, Frakt planned to call Vandeveld as a witness, on September 25 2008 or September 26 2008. Vandeveld was willing to testify. But his superiors planned to block his testimony. According to Meyers, Frakt planned to ask Henley, the Presiding Officer, to compel Vandeveld's testimony.

In January 2009, after charged had been dropped against Jawad, but while he still remained in Guantanamo, a fifteen page affidavit from Vandeveld was submitted as part of Jawad's habeas corpus petition. In the affidavit Vandeveld went into detail about the circumstances that convinced him that trying Jawad was a miscarraige of justice, and that Jawad was not actually charged with committing acts that were genuine war crimes.

rough work

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DEFAULTSORT:Vandeveld, Darrel J. Category:American Christians Category:American lawyers Category:Living people Category:People from Erie, Pennsylvania Category:United States Army officers Category:Guantanamo Military Commission Prosecutors