Morris Davis

Awards

Davis has received the following awards and recognition.

Guantanamo service

Unlike his predecessors, Fred Borch and Robert L. Swann, Davis has been a visible public figure. His statements have triggered controversy.

Comments on the character of the suspects and their attorneys

Khadr's attorney, Muneer Ahmad of American University, accused Colonel Davis of ethical misconduct for referring to Khadr as a "terrorist" and a "murderer" during the January 10, 2006 press conference. Ahmad asked the Presiding Officer to sanction Colonel Davis for the comments, but the presiding officer found the comments were fair and balanced, given the repeated negative out of court statements Ahmad had made for months prior to the hearing. When asked why the prosecution had finally broken its silence, Davis said:

"For a number of months we've sat on the sidelines. We've just kind of taken it. There comes a time when you don't take it anymore."

On February 28, 2006 Davis spoke out again regarding the commissions, saying:

"Remember if you dragged Dracula out into the sunlight he melted? Well, that's kind of the way it is trying to drag a detainee into the courtroom."

As Candace Gorman, a defense attorney representing a Guantanamo detainee, noted, this was an odd statement from Davis since it was the military's fault that so few cases had come to trial before the military commissions. By early 2007, only David Hicks, an Australian citizen, was being tried, and all but one of the charges against him had been dropped before trial for lack of evidence.

In March 2007 Davis challenged Major Michael Mori, the military defense counsel assigned to Hicks' case, by threatening him with prosecution for violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He claimed that Mori had acted improperly in criticizing the military commissions while in Australia gathering evidence for the defense. Mori responded angrily, "Are they trying to intimidate me?"

Col. Dwight Sullivan, the Chief Defense Counsel for the military commissions, said that Major Mori’s behavior as defense counsel was “absolutely proper.” He said that, “a military defense lawyer is supposed to provide the same level of representation as a civilian lawyer.” He said that in pressing Mr. Hicks’s case in Australia, “Major Mori is fulfilling his duty as an officer and as an attorney.”

"The Guantánamo I Know"

On June 26, 2007 an op-ed by Davis, entitled "The Guantanamo I know", was published in the New York Times. In it, Davis argued that the Guantánamo Bay detention center is humane, professional, and operating in compliance with international law.

Supreme court to hear challenges to the Military Commissions Act

Congress authorized the military commission system under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to create an alternative to the existing federal and military system. It restricted detainees as enemy combatants and those whose review was pending, to the military commission process; it prohibited their use of federal courts. The government stayed pending writs of habeas corpus.

On June 29, 2007 the Supreme Court agreed to hear some outstanding claims of habeas corpus., opening up the possibility that they might overturn some or all of the Military Commissions Act.

Davis called the Supreme Court's intention to review the MCA "meddling":

"This constant uncertainty and meddling certainly takes a toll on people, It would be nice to have some certainty for a change."

Resignation as Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay

In October 2007 Colonel Davis resigned from his position as Chief Prosecutor. He had made the policy that evidence obtained from the use of waterboarding, which he considered torture, would not be admissible as evidence in the military commissions. By this time, charges were being developed against high-value detainees, some of whom had been waterboarded in the custody of the CIA. Davis was overruled in his policy by his superiors, including William J. Haynes, II, the General Counsel for the Department of Defense.

Davis resigned in protest and transferred to become the Head of the Air Force Judiciary, stating, "The guy who said waterboarding is A-okay I was not going to take orders from. I quit." He also charged that there was meddling from the Pentagon in cases, and claimed this presented serious conflicts of interest.

Davis said he was denied an end-of-tour medal for his two years at Guantanamo because he resigned and later spoke out about problems in the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions. Davis stated about the medal denial, "I tell the truth, and I get labeled as having served dishonorably. I'm very concerned about the chilling effect . . . on the process". Since his resignation, Davis has frequently spoken out against the Commissions.

In 2008 Davis was called by the defense to testify in the military commission of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, where he repeated his accusations of political interference. He said Pentagon interest in the progress of trials of detainees greatly increased after September 2006, when high-value detainees were transferred from the CIA to Guantanamo.

Post-military career

Davis was named the head of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service in December 2008; and was fired from this job in late November or early December 2009. His firing was thought prompted because of an op-ed Davis published in the Wall Street Journal that criticized a federal proposal to prosecute detainees in either military commissions or federal courts; he believed that one venue had to be consistently used. Davis wrote: "The administration must choose. Either federal courts or military commissions, but not both, for the detainees that deserve to be prosecuted and punished for their past conduct."

During his post-military career Davis has published numerous op-eds and other criticisms of the Guantanamo Military Commission process. On March 27, 2015, after the most recent Convening Authority for the military commissions was fired after less than a year on the job Morris wrote: