Military

The Arizona legislature is considering new legislation that will compensate exonerated individuals. HB 2813 was introduced in February by Republican Representative Khyl Powell and easily passed in the Arizona House of Representatives in a 59 – 1 vote two weeks later. The bill is now awaiting consideration by the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee, and according to reporting by the Daily Independent it is being “considered for inclusion as part of a final budget package.” The bill would…

On April 11, 2025, Judge Colonel Matthew McCall ruled that confessions elicited from Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of conspiring in the September 11^th terrorism attacks, were the result of torture carried out by the CIA and as a result cannot be used against Mr. al-Baluchi in any legal proceeding. According to Col. McCall, Mr. al-Baluchi involuntarily incriminated himself in 2007 after extensive “psychological conditioning” through torture and abuse during his detention at the CIA’s overseas…

On December 30, 2024, a military appeals court upheld a lower court ruling rejecting Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s attempt to throw out plea deals reached for three men charged in the September 11 terrorism attacks. The court affirmed Judge Colonel Matthew N. McCall’s ruling in November 2024 that the plea agreements reached in July 2024 are valid. Col. McCall stated at the time that he would proceed with the plea hearings. The three-panel court wrote that they “agree with the military judge…

In a Washington Post op-ed, Chanel Shum, a member of September 11^th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, explains her support of plea agreements that would end decades of legal uncertainty and sentence three of the accused 9/11 defendants to life without parole. Ms. Shum was starting preschool when her father, See Wong Shum, was killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Describing her first time attending hearings at Guantánamo Bay, she writes, “Like many, I assumed that justice had been…