Chris Dodd for President

Fifty-two years ago, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, was beaten and shot to death for allegedly whistling at a white woman in segregated Mississippi. An all-white jury took 67 minutes to acquit two white men of the murder; months later, they admitted the crime and spent the rest of their lives in freedom.

And now, we have named a bill in honor of Till, to expose the unpunished crimes of murderers like his and to confront the troubled history of race in America. This week, we celebrate the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, the only thing standing in the way of its Senate passage is a hold placed on it by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). His delaying tactics are postponing justice day by day, and we trust that he will overcome his faulty objections.

This biIl creates two new civil rights positions in the Department of Justice to spearhead and coordinate federal, state, and local efforts to bring long-time fugitives to justice. It authorizes a potential $10 million per year to be added to the Department of Justice budget for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting outstanding Civil Rights era crimes. It also authorizes $1.5 million per year for outreach to garner the cooperation of local communities, and $2 million in federal support to help state and local law enforcement officials prosecute these crimes. . . .

Congress should move swiftly to create a "cold case" unit of the U.S. Justice Department to solve old civil rights cases.
The House has passed a bill to provide $10 million a year over the next decade for prosecutors and the FBI to focus on the old cases, as well as $2 million per year for state and local law enforcement agencies and $1.5 million to help coordinate investigations. Now, it's up to the Senate. . . .
A cold case unit to prosecute similar cases "may not bring back and make whole those who suffered and died by a racist's criminal hand," as U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who introduced the original cold case bill, has said. "But it can at least reaffirm our nation's commitment to seek the truth and make equal justice a reality." . . .

After detaining hundreds of terrorism suspects for more than five years at the Guantánamo Bay prison, the Bush administration still hasn't created a fair system for trying terror-war crimes. The first military commissions were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Now the second set of rules for terror-war trials, issued last month, fails -- again -- to abide by long-established U.S. and international legal standards.

Coercion, not torture

As Lord Peter Goldsmith, Britain's top lawyer, told the American Bar Association in Miami on Monday, ``The changes made are too little and too late. There remain fundamental problems with this system of detention.''

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Senate Democrats Tuesday unveiled proposed legislation to restore some legal rights to suspected terrorists, but distanced themselves from calls to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., filed a bill that would restore the right of detainees to challenge their detention, bar evidence gained through torture and allow detainees to invoke the Geneva Convention.

The filing comes four months after the GOP-led Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, described by supporters as a critical weapon against terrorism.

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Sen. Chris Dodd introduced legislation Tuesday to provide suspected terrorists with basic rights to a fair and speedy trial granted to American citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

The legislation would replace a military tribunal law Congress approved last September at the behest of the Bush administration. The law imposed restrictions on a terrorist suspect's ability to challenge his detention, examine evidence against him and bar testimony obtained through coercion.

"I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting this country from terrorists," the Connecticut Democrat said. "But there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this."

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