Amicus for Aguayo

December 7th, 2007

We filed an amicus brief today.  For those who don’t know, it is short for “amicus curiae,” which in Latin, means “friend of the court.”  This is where a party is asking the Supreme Court to review their case, and another person or group who has not been previously involved in the case feels that the case would so affect them. This outside party puts in their two cents in order in an attempt to provide information or testimony that may sway the Court’s decision.

The case for which we wrote the brief for was that of Agustin Aguayo.  He is the CO who went AWOL from Germany in order to avoid deployment to Iraq, after his CO claim had been denied and after he unsuccessfully filed for Habeas Corpus.  A CO whose application is turned down by the Secretary of the Army can file for a Habeas Corpus, Latin for “release the body,” with the civilian court system. If the CO is successful, the military would be directed to release the CO.

Aguayo was arrested, court martialed, and sent to jail. 

The problem from our perspective, aside from the fact that a genuine CO was denied his discharge and imprisoned, was that the District Court in the District of Columbia basically held that the Army had greater discretion in CO cases than its regulations on CO discharges allowed for.  This is an especially bad place for a court to make such a ruling since all the cases of U.S. Military COs who are outside of the U.S.—say, in Baghdad or Fallujah or Kabul – are decided in the DC District court.  So, not just the local DC cases are harmed by this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decision.

So in our “spare” time Dan, my new legal associate, and I worked until midnight several nights in a row writing a brief while I relearned the Supreme Court rules which changed on October 1, 2007.

But I figure that is easier than facing a court martial because a District Court says that the Army can do whatever it wants.