Since taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama has made numerous pledges to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Yet, with only seven months remaining of his final term, the facility remains open.
A newly released book, Obama’s Guantanamo: Stories from an Enduring Prison, describes the president’s failure to close the center and features a chapter written by Fordham Law Professor Martha Rayner. Her contribution, “You Love the Law Too Much,” details the legal complications surrounding her defense of a Guantanamo detainee.
“The law was constantly changing; just when my client thought the law would offer him stability, security, or transparency, it would change,” said Rayner, who has represented Guantanamo detainees since 2005. “My client once told me that I love the law too much. He did not say it to criticize me but rather to help me understand that he needed refuge from the law.”
The prison camp was opened in 2002 by the Bush administration and has been widely criticized for various unlawful actions directed at its prisoners, including indefinite detention without due process, abuse, and torture.
“The process of attempting to obtain, from ‘the law,’ some semblance of stability and reasonable prediction of the future was harming my client—serving only to compound his fear and disorientation,” Rayner said. “Its promise to bring clarity, resolution, and accountability failed. Instead, my client feels a tremendous absence of law. The Obama administration designated my client for prosecution, but no prosecutor has brought charges against him.”
In February, Obama sent Congress a plan to close Guantanamo, but still nothing has changed, as Congress has never supported the closure.
“For my client, the ‘rule of law’ permits the United States to hide its crimes, and it permits the United States to take away liberty without trial for a wholly undefined length of time,” Rayner explained. “There is, for my client, no law at Gitmo. When he will be released, who will decide it, and under what criteria is utterly unknown.”
When speaking about the book release on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show, she noted that Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo before leaving office revolves around relocating the detainees.
“It is extremely unlikely Obama will transfer the remaining 79 men from Gitmo, which would allow the closing of the center,” she said. “But it is important to understand that Obama’s plan to close Gitmo never meant releasing all the men there or at least releasing all those who were not prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced. Obama’s plan always included transferring Gitmo prisoners to U.S. soil and continuing the policy of imprisonment without trial.”
Professor Rayner has been a clinical professor at Fordham Law since 1998, where she has directed the Criminal Defense Clinic.
Each semester, a team of Fordham students enrolled in the clinic is assigned to represent a client detained at Guantanamo Bay.
“Although the main focus of the clinic is representing clients charged with crimes, the defense clinic also represents clients seeking parole and clemency, as well as the clients at Gitmo,” Rayner said. “Incorporating this array of work in one clinic affords students broad opportunities to learn about how to become a lawyer and advocate.”
A collection of 14 essays, “Obama’s Guantanamo: Stories from an Enduring Prison” was edited by Jonathan Hafetz and published by NYU Press.
