September 2007
Law In the Age of Terror
New Yorkers watch the World Trade Center fall. Photo by Patrick Witty
Six years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, much of the legal system’s role in the war on terror remains unresolved.
Should the courts take a backseat to the executive branch, as they have historically done during wartime? Or, in this new kind of conflict—with no hope of a discernible, state-sanctioned end—should the courts hold the executive branch as accountable as they would in peacetime?
Neither view seems likely to win out. Rather, we seem to be stumbling toward a third way: building, bit by bit, a new paradigm of the law of terror—defining the limits of executive power, civil liberties, defendants’ rights and the independence of the judiciary with a system that borrows from the law of both wartime and peacetime.
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Web Extras
Feature Section
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Rising From The Rubble
In the aftermath of 9/11, lawyers at New York’s Harris Beach don’t practice law the same way they once did.
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Every Terrorism Case Since 9/11
From 15,000 FBI interviews of “persons of interest” to 2,972 convictions, how the government’s terrorism-related cases have played out.
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Moussaoui v. The United States
In the case of the “20th hijacker,” due process thwarted a courtroom jihad.
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But Is It War?
Conservatives debate the limits of executive power post-9/11.
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31 Wins, 6 Losses & 1 Tie
Our scorecard of the Justice Department’s legal war against al-Qaida.
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The Architects
The Bush administration lawyers who created the blueprint for the legal war on terror.
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The 50-Lawyer Poll
Defense attorneys who have tried terror cases score the legal system’s response to 9/11.
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The Go-To Lawyer of ‘Northern Virginiastan’
Muslim-American attorney Ashraf Nubani dreams of building an ordinary law practice. Meanwhile, there are terrorists—alleged and otherwise—to defend.
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“If I Represented Bin Laden ...”
How some of America’s best-known defense lawyers and legal commentators would represent public enemy No. 1.
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Setting Precedent In Two Wars
Justice John Paul Stevens has turned dissents he helped draft as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk 60 years ago into majority opinions during the war on terror.
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A Uniform Complaint
Former military lawyers recount their fight to define justice for enemy combatants.
ABA Connection
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Accounting for Lives
The 9/11 victim compensation fund worked. But what about the next time?
