Rule of Law and Prisoners

RULE OF LAW AND PRISONERS -- (House of Representatives - September 19, 2006)

(Ms. SCHAKOWSKY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. We are having a very important debate in this country on how we deal with terrorist prisoners or so-called terrorist prisoners and the way that we try them and the way that we present evidence.

Many of you will remember that in the Oklahoma City bombing when Timothy McVeigh was captured no one in the United States of America said, We are not going to give him all the rights under our Constitution, we are not going to show him the evidence that we have against him; we are going to deny him all his full rights to a jury trial.

If you think about it, no matter how heinous the crime is, when it occurs here, Americans say we have the rule of law, that is who we are. And no matter how horrible and horrifying it is, each individual has a process.

It seems to me that when we deal with this war on terrorism that we are talking about so much, that we owe it to ourselves as a country that established the rule of law that we make sure that those who are accused get the charges against them and the right to defend themselves.

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