Balkinization  

Monday, October 16, 2006

Hamdan's Lawyer Denied Promotion: "Quite a Coincidence"

Brian Tamanaha

MSNBC reported on Saturday that Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, was notified two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of his client that he would not be promoted to commander. His supervisor said Swift "has obviously done an exceptional job" and noted that the denial of his promotion soon after the Supreme Court ruling was "quite a coincidence." Pursuant to the military's "up or out" system, Swift will retire next March or April.

Although Swift did not explicitly attribute the denial of his promotion to retaliation for his vigorous and successful representation of his client, he did say that he would have defended Hamdan "even if he had known it would cut short his Navy career."

The message sent to others in Swift's situation is unambiguous: don't cross the government.

This is how we treat military lawyers who do their duty to their clients and to their country.

There are many casualties and heroes in the ongoing war. Lt. Commander Swift is one of them. He deserves our gratitude for sacrificing his military career to fight for our collective ideals.

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