Last night here in Washington, the Constitution Project, a bi-partisan organization committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution held its annual awards dinner. The honorees were two seemingly unlikely recipients: Alberto Mora, former General Counsel with the Department of the Navy and Craig Watkins, District Attorney for Dallas County, Texas. At first glance, a senior Defense Department official and a prosecutor from Texas seemed like unlikely choices for awards for upholding the rule of law. However, as we learned the stories of these two men, it became clear that adherents for upholding the rule of law can indeed come from unusual places.
Alberto Mora
Mr. Mora served as general counsel to the Department of the Navy during the early years of the Bush Administration. In his role as head counsel, Mr. Mora became aware of the fact that the Defense Department had begun to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Concerned about the violations of law committed in the course of committing cruel and harsh treatment of prisoners, Mr. Mora participated in a working group within the DoD to address the issues associated with the illegal activity. Mr. Mora served as the lone voice opposing the legal logic that justified the DoD torture policy.
On January 15, 2003, he received word from his boss, Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, that Rumsfeld would be suspending the authority for the extraordinary interrogation techniques later that day. For more than two years, Mr. Mora was assured that torture had been suspended at Guantanamo Bay and at Abu Ghraib. Eventually, the truth was revealed that torture continued within the U.S. prison system. Mr. Mora stated
To my mind, there’s no moral or practical distinction [between cruelty and torture]. If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America-even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It’s a transformative issue…
Besides, my mother would have killed me if I hadn’t spoken up. No Hungarian after Communism, or Cuban after Castro, is not aware that human rights are incompatible with cruelty. The debate here isn’t only how to protect the country. It’s how to protect our values.
Craig Watkins
Mr. Watkins was the first African-American elected as a district attorney in any county in the state of Texas. Shortly after taking office in 2006, Mr. Watkins was faced with the task of dealing with a wrongfully convicted man sent to prison by the Dallas County DA. The first step in this strange journey was when Mr. Watkins shook the hand of the wrongfully convicted man and apologized to him.
After taking office, Watkins dismissed nine top-level prosecutors in the office. Nine others left voluntarily. He established a “Conviction Integrity Unit” to ensure proper prosecutorial procedures. In addition, he began to work with the New York based Innocence Project. After examining the convictions of 40 criminal defendants incarcerated in Dallas County, he found that DNA evidence absolved 22 of the men. Mr. Watkins followed the legendary law-and-order Dallas prosecutor Henry Wade, who embodied that philosophy of conviction at any cost.
As I reflected on the accomplishments of these two men, I began to think about the views of justice held by many Americans today. At its core, the distain for law enforcement, the sense of anger aimed at authorities who hold sway over our daily lives and the general mistrust held in the legal system all speak to the failure of the rule of law in small but significant ways. While the United States serves as a model for the rest of the world, political pressures to reduce crime and halt social ills befalling our society have, in some instances, overwhelmed our systems of criminal justice.
Then as the weight of the 9/11 terrorist attacks pressured those in power to act, our legal systems were short circuited in an effort to solve the problems. Whether these acts limiting the rule of law and the execution of justice were done with malice or inadvertently matter less than the fact that may innocent people have been incarcerated or executed, others were not given adequate legal protections under our legal system and others were simply exempted from our system of justice entirely. Compounding of injustices leads to the corrosion of our system of laws by weak men. Mr. Mora and Mr. Watkins show us that a few good men do in fact exist.
I and many other Australians are also very impressed by Mr Mora.