Use of Hearsay in Military Commissions.

摘要

Trial by military commission has been described as an 'extraordinary measure' in the annals of American jurisprudence. In fact, such commissions and other military tribunals have been used repeatedly throughout U.S. history--over 2,000 times during the Civil War alone--to maintain order during periods of hostilities, to enforce martial law, and to prosecute war crimes in defense of the Nation. As explained by William Winthrop, whom the Supreme Court has dubbed the 'Blackstone of Military Law,' such commissions have functioned essentially as instrumentalities of the war powers vested in Congress and the President. Thus, as tools of war, military commissions are in many ways no more or less extraordinary than their historical context-i.e., the armed conflicts in which Congress and the President have called them into service.