Rarely have I ever agreed with Dershowitz on ANYTHING.
But, lately he and I are on a roll... LOL!
Elian surely needs HIS OWN representation. He is NOT
property belonging to anyone, to do with as they please.
Not (necessarily) even his father.
Jim
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NewsMax.com
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For the story behind the story...
Saturday April 29, 2000; 6:44 AM EDT
Dershowitz: Elian Needs His Own Lawyer
(Note: Emphasis added)
"Up until now, this case has not been about
Elian's rights. It's has been about Elian's
father's rights and about the claimed rights of
Elian's Miami relatives. No one has made a
determination as to whether Elian's best
interests would be served by his return to Cuba
with his father or by remaining in the United
States."
So wrote Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz in a
Los Angeles Times op-ed piece that appeared
less than 24 hours before President Clinton
ordered Attorney General Janet Reno to seize
Elian Gonzalez by force.
Though the Harvard Law man is usually in the
Clinton administration's corner, he thought the
government was trampling on the rights of the
six-year-old Cuban refugee even before the
administration launched its outrageous pre-dawn
assault on his Miami home.
Dershowitz argued that, though many of the facts
in Elian's case are in dispute, the boy has thus
far been denied the kind of search for the truth
that due process was meant to ensure. "We still
have not had a single word of testimony under
oath, a single subpoena issued or a single
witness cross examined," noted the professor.
Now, though Elian remains on American soil and
ostensibly enjoys the protection of the U.S.
system of justice, his only legal spokesman is
Gregory Craig, onetime lawyer to Bill Clinton,
the man who authorized his gunpoint abduction.
"The best assurance that the courts will apply
the law fairly is for the child -- who, after
all, has the greatest stake in the outcome -- to
have his own advocate," concluded Deshowitz.
On Thursday the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
refused to appoint an independent lawyer who
could speak for the boy, as lawyers for his
Miami family had requested. Dershowitz's
argument makes that decision even more difficult
to understand.
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