Ratner: Even Osama Should Have Had Criminal Rights

Michael Ratner would have treated the pursuit of Osama bin Laden as a law enforcement matter, not as a matter of war. He would rather have seen bin Laden arrested, brought to trial, and given the rights of a criminal defendant than shot on the spot by Navy SEALS.

This almost certainly doesn’t put Ratner in the mainstream of American opinion, but it is consistent with what Ratner has advocated as president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based non-profit organization, and as an attorney who has played key roles in defending the legal rights of prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and in opposing interrogation techniques Ratner considers torture.

Ratner visited Eckstein Hall last week to speak to about 20 people at a lunch session of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Milwaukee Lawyer Chapter.

Ratner realizes where the preponderance of American opinion lies on the killing on May 1 of bin Laden. “No one really cares whether he was lawfully killed or not,” he said. “People wanted him killed.”

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Law Students of Hope

This past Friday, Marquette Law School held a celebration of hope – hope for our community, hope for the legal profession, and hope for our institution.  The 2011 Posner Pro Bono Exchange between Fr.  Fred Kammer, S.J., director of the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University in New Orleans and Mike Gousha, Distinguished Fellow of Law and Public Policy at Marquette Law School, followed immediately by the induction of 91 new law student members of the Pro Bono Society (bringing the total to 103 for the academic year), was bounded by hope.

How could we alumni, staff, faculty, and donors in attendance not find hope and admiration for so many law students who committed themselves to placing their legal education at the service of those in need, without credit or compensation, even in the midst of a difficult economy and increasing academic competition?  There is no requirement to perform such voluntary service, yet, each year, an increasing number of our law students choose to perform more than fifty hours of supervised, law-related, volunteer service in our community.  Whether at the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic, the Legal and Medical Partnership for Families, the Marquette Foreclosure Mediation Program, the Marquette Legal Initiative for Nonprofit Corporations, or any of a dozen other programs or placements, these students render a real service to those in need – and in so doing, begin a career commitment to the principal of pro bono publico – service for the good of the public.

Fr. Kammer reminded us that service to others, particularly service to the most vulnerable among us, is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching and thus, a central theme of Jesuit education. 

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Restorative Justice Conference: Keeping the Victims Foremost

The eight-year-old who wasn’t there: That was one of the most important people involved in last week’s impressive two-day conference at Eckstein Hall on dealing with clergy sex abuse scandals.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Ireland, the Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, brought the eight-year-old into the conference.

Of course, no children were literally present. But Archbishop Martin, who has attracted substantial international attention for his strong stands in the aftermath of large-scale scandals in Dublin, recounted how he had a bit of time before a program at a school he was visiting. The principal asked if there was anything he wanted to see. He said he wanted to visit a class of eight-year-olds.

The reason, he said, was that he wanted to look at their faces and underscore in his own mind their images. When people deal with issues related to the scandals, they tend to see the victims as the adults they are when what happened to them comes to light, the archbishop said. He said, “It is important to see the face of eight-year-old.”

When dealing with the issue of sex abuse, it is the images of the victims, both as children and adults, that should come to mind first, not the images of clergy members or the situation of the church overall, Martin said.

That was one of the key messages of the conference, “Harm, Hope, and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Scandal.” The sessions, the Law School’s annual Restorative Justice Initiative conference for this year, brought together experts from around the world and attracted wide attention, particularly in the Catholic press.

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