[JURIST] New Orleans Judge Arthur Hunter [NO District Court website] is slated to start reviewing the records of New Orleans prisoners in view of their possible release on Tuesday, the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive], which devastated the city and its court system [JURIST report] last year. Some 6,000 cases are backlogged and only half of the New Orleans courthouse's 12 courtrooms have come back into service since judges returned to the flood-damaged building in June. Hunter says that especially given a shortage of public defenders, many indigent prisoners locked up even before the hurricane haven't talked to lawyers or been charged with crimes; he believes their rights have been being violated for too long and that therefore their releases warrant consideration on a case-by-case basis. Hunter first threatened to begin releasing prisoners [JURIST report] in July after Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco balked at a subpoena to come and explain the unsatisfactory situation.

The Houston Chronicle Sunday quoted Hunter as asking: "How long do you expect people to wait in jail to see a lawyer? We have people in Guantanamo appointed council, but our own citizens can't see a lawyer." There is minimal support within the New Orleans criminal justice system, however, for Hunter's proposal. New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan [Wikipedia profile] told the Chronicle: "We're all suffering the effects of the storm. Simply releasing all defendants because the public defender's office is not fully functional is an injustice and undermines public safety." The Houston Chronicle has more.

[JURIST] US government lawyers and US military lawyers are butting heads as the White House attempts to limit the role of the latter in framing draft legislation that would change the rules for trials of suspected terrorists, the Boston Globe reported Sunday. The military lawyers are particularly concerned [JURIST report] about not allowing detainees to see the evidence against them, which many say violates the Geneva Conventions [text].

The Bush administration, however, has limited discussion regarding the issue, arguing that disclosing some evidence during military tribunals [procedures, PDF]] could pose a threat to national security. The same logic was used in March when the Miami federal judge presiding over the trial of terror suspect Jose Padilla severely restricted the disclosure [JURIST report] of evidence containing classified material using the Classified Information Procedures Act [text]. However, the judge in the case later decided in an unorthodox move to allow Padilla to view classified documents [JURIST report] because the indictment against him was "light on facts" linking him to specific terrorist acts.

The tension between the government and the military lawyers is thought to be the result of what has been called an effort by White House political appointees to exercise greater control over career military legal experts. Military tribunals in general have been a controversial topic lately; in June, the US Supreme Court struck down the White House's military tribunals system [JURIST report; BBC analysis], prompting the drafting of new legislation. The Boston Globe has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi Defense Minister Hashem al Shebli said Saturday according to McClatchy Newspapers that the notorious Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] prison is now empty as US officials have recently finished moving the prison's remaining 3,600 prisoners to other US-run detention centers. Some prisoners were released; most were sent to either Camp Cropper [Wikipedia backgrounder] near Baghdad International Airport or Camp Bucca [JURIST news archive] near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq. Shebli said that Iraqi army troops are currently guarding Abu Ghraib prison, which will eventually be transferred to Iraqi forces, but it is unclear what will happen to the prison after that. Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a Pentagon spokesman, would not officially confirm that the prison is vacant, however, saying only that the US has been moving prisoners in recent days. Over the past few months, the US has been continuously releasing prisoners [JURIST report] from Abu Ghraib and other detention centers as part of a national reconciliation plan [JURIST report] aimed at appeasing Iraq's Sunni minority. McClatchy Newspapers has more. In March, comments by certain US military officials [JURIST report] led to widely-publicized reports that the US intended to close the prison within three months, but these were later denied by Pentagon sources as "premature" and "inaccurate" [JURIST report].

The US has been under pressure to close Abu Ghraib since scandalous photos [see also JURIST report] of US troops abusing prisoners there surfaced in April 2004. The photos increased tension between the US and the Muslim world and fueled the insurgency in Iraq [BBC backgrounder]. A Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] report released in July claimed that US commanders authorized [JURIST report] widespread torture of Iraqi detainees during and even after the Abu Ghraib scandal.