How Should Judge Candlass Rule?

[Darth Yoshi]

I voted to throw out the confession. Even though she is guilty of spying, Luga's entanglement was a violation of her rights as a human being. Don't forget that in the past sensitives were committed because of entanglement. Just because Branch was only subjected to it once doesn't make it okay.

If he were a suspect in a criminal proceeding (or should I say, only a subject in a criminal proceeding) as opposed to an enemy combatant not covered by the Geneva Convention, then it your point would be relevant. He wasn't, so it isn't. If I ever become the undoubted number two man in an international terror organization, I'll regret my stand here.

You're a fucking moron. Without a set code of laws covering unlawful combatants, they default to municipal law, which in the US still doesn't allow torture.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Even if the confession is thrown out, can't she still be held indefinitely as a spy until such time as heaven tries to arrange for her release?

[Gil Hamilton]

Even if the confession is thrown out, can't she still be held indefinitely as a spy until such time as heaven tries to arrange for her release?

She's not guilty of espionage until she's convicted of it, unfortunately. That's another Due Process thing and Luga may have screwed that over.

[tim31]

Fuck.

I wanted to keep the confession, but there's just no way to justify what was done. Branch was drugged then mind-raped to get the confession.

I voted to keep for the sake of the narrative, but Bean's deconstruction of RO11's stand makes me feel... Well, stupid. But I voted that way so I'll man up and stick to it. The outcome looks like it's decided anyway.

[Mr Bean]

I voted to keep for the sake of the narrative, but Bean's deconstruction of RO11's stand makes me feel... Well, stupid. But I voted that way so I'll man up and stick to it. The outcome looks like it's decided anyway.

Speaking of that, time to return RO11's last sally.

So do you support removing the skin of suspects one inch at a time? Ripping off their fingernails? Locking them in a metal box in the hot sun for days at a time with water popred in a hole at the top and them being unable to stand up, let alone turn around?

If those things worked better than what was used, then yes. As they don't work any better than the techniques used, there's no point to them so I don't support them.
I'd rather do those things, though, than have several thousand more victims on my conscience. How about you?

Well this is two points in one, and for the love of Xenu I just noticed my spelling mistake. Lets go point by point

Point 1
Do these techniques work better than what was used?
See my second quote. There's a reason I referenced Witches

And point 2 which you conceded. That once you begin to use techniques which are considered tortue. You must consider using them all. You can't pick and chose and say that Lashing is OK but the Rack is not. Or that close heat box confinement (The method of locking someone in a metal box naked in the sun almost doubled up on themselves) is bad but water boarding is fine. Even if the method causing no lasting physical harm it will sure as hell cause lasting psychological harm. That's why it's tortue.

You would agree there are no methods that cause only physical harm and not psychological harm? But there are methods that cause no physical harm but do cause psychological harm?

If so then you can accept the lose definition of torture as a technique which causes large amount of one or the other or both of that harm. Sleep deprivation is not torture but if you keep someone awake for three weeks it can become tortue even if keeping them away for four days is not. There is a line you cross when it becomes torture would you agree?

You know once you start using torture, you find an awful lot of witches?

We already found the "witches" here, and unlike the victims of the witch hunts they actually exist. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, for instance, even made videos boasting of his terror activities.

Water boarding wasn't to extort confessions. That's pointless as you note. It was to gain actionable intelligence.

You missed the point, once you begin torturing you begin finding Witches. IE you begin finding false confessions. false intelligence. Lets take Khalid Sheik Mohammed, sure he was guilty, but what if as actually happened during the interrogation he names someone else and claims that person(Lets call him Bob) is the head of a cell that was had an attack planned at the end of the year.

You bring Bob in, you put him down and start putting him through the same treatment, but you can't find his co-conspirators and because your looking so hard you find in his house a dozen things which could be indicative of a federal building somewhere or a landmark. You don't find any hard evidence but can you afford not to torture this new terrorist? Of course you can't...

Except...
Except........
Except Bob is innocent. Khalid could not take it anymore that day and he just shouted out a name to make the agents stop waterboarding him. Now you have Bob but you have nothing. Well you tortured one why not another?
Except you don't get anything... so you get harsher...
And now you've made a Witch.

Everyone has a personal breaking point, when sleep deprivation combined with physical and mental anguish will combine to make you tell your interrogators whatever they want to hear to make the pain stop.
Not what's real mind you, what THEY want to HEAR
Which means if your tortures ask any kind of leading questions like say, where Bob attack is planned, who his fellow members are, who recruited them, were any other attacks planned...
Your busy minting Witches because as soon as Bob cracks(He is innocent in this example) he's going to name other innocent people, maybe people he dislikes, maybe however comes to mind.

And because you've already said your willing to torture to save lives, you best torture these people as well, you want to know the same things after all, who recruited them, were any other attacks planned, and you want to check their stories against each other.

Ok you say but what if Bob is guilty...
Ahh... but what if he is?
Why would Bob give you the people he's working with, if he's cracked, he is much more likely to name many names. Many new Witches, if you suggest a name to him he will likely agree because he thinks it will please you.

The key issue with torture is that in order for it to be effect.
You must already know the questions to ask
And in order to do that, you must already know what THEY know.

[R011]

The UN convention against torture still applies whether he is an enemy combatant or not, so your amateuring lawyering falls flat.

There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether waterboarding counts as torture under the convention. Regardless, I wasn't speaking to the legality of waterboarding, only the morality and effectiveness.

Oh, it is all about the senior people now, is it?

They being the only ones who were ever waterboarded, yes. I thought I've been reasonably clear about that. It hasn't been used on people who were not known beyond doubt to be terrorists. If you have some fantasy that it's been used in a much larger scale than the three on whom it was used some years ago, then we have little to discuss.

[Simon_Jester]

Fuck.

I wanted to keep the confession, but there's just no way to justify what was done. Branch was drugged then mind-raped to get the confession.

I voted to keep for the sake of the narrative, but Bean's deconstruction of RO11's stand makes me feel... Well, stupid. But I voted that way so I'll man up and stick to it. The outcome looks like it's decided anyway.

It's not stupid for you to vote that way. It would be totally unsurprising for the judge to rule in the prosecution's favor here because of circumstances (that whole "war of survival" thing). It's just that I think it would be bad, from a constitutional standpoint.

Judges have saying: "hard cases make bad law." As I understand it, that means the following:

When there are a lot of conflicting issues at stake, a judge will be tempted to come up with a new interpretation of the law to resolve the situation in the way they want things to go. But that's a very bad idea, because it's likely to yield a messy snake pit of precedents that will cause trouble for years to come. The best precedents are established by clear-cut cases where you can isolate important variables such as "the suspect was not informed of his constitutional rights" or "students are being segregated into different schools on account of race."

Try to come up with a whole new set of rules to govern standards of evidence and what you can do in the process of interrogating a suspect because this time you really really want to, and you'll be regretting your decision for decades. The precedent set here will also be applied elsewhere, to cases you didn't originally have in mind. So in an ugly and complicated case, it's usually best to stick to existing rules that people have had time to explore the consequences of more fully.

But as people like Bayonet point out, in the middle of a really serious war people tend to overlook things like that, even if they shouldn't, and decide to do whatever they deem most convenient for the war effort rather than whatever will produce the best legal system in the long run. It's a natural human thing to do, and so I can easily see why someone would vote that Candlass would rule for the prosecution. Or, for dramatic and narrative reasons, why he should do so.

I'm not saying he wouldn't do so in real life or that the story isn't well-served if he does. I'm saying that he ought to rule for the defense if he follows the law like he's supposed to. It happens sometimes, especially when you have inept law enforcement personnel doing things they ought to know will screw up their own case by undermining the evidence.

[R011]

That once you begin to use techniques which are considered tortue.

In this case, the US government decided to stop at a technique that could be argued was not torture.

You must consider using them all.

OK. Considering, though, does not mean using them unless there is actually a pressing reason to do so. There is none. Lesser techniques, like waterboarding, seem to work quite well enough.

he names someone else and claims that person(Lets call him Bob)

If "Bob" is a brand new name to the interrogators, it's likely that they'll be properly skeptical. Generally speaking, they had a very good idea of who the top leadership of AQ was. That isn't really the kind of thing they were trying to get. In real life, there doesn't seem to have to have been any innocent "Bobs" apprehended due to waterboarding.

You bring Bob in, you put him down and start putting him through the same treatment,

Except, of course, that, if they brought in even any guilty "Bobs" at all, they didn't waterboard them.

You do realize, by the way, that intelligence is more than just confessions and naming names, right? It's revealing methods, structure, places, plans, dates, times, and a myriad other things

And because you've already said your willing to torture to save lives, you best torture these people as well,

That they've only had to waterboard three people rather leads me to conclude that other measures are usually sufficiently effective or that the remaining terrorists did not have information as valuable.

You've got yourself stuck on the Slippery Slope here. You've assumed that having done one thing once (or three times as in this case), then people have no choice but to continue further and deeper. As we've seen in real life, that is not the case. They waterboarded three very senior people back in 2002, and stopped.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Even if the confession is thrown out, can't she still be held indefinitely as a spy until such time as heaven tries to arrange for her release?

As has been said, due process may have been sufficiently sodomized as to give the government no legal reason to hold her. However, the moment she walks, I'd imagine they'll simply draft her into the Army and send her off to build roads to the middle of nowhere in Hell.

[Thanas]

The UN convention against torture still applies whether he is an enemy combatant or not, so your amateuring lawyering falls flat.

There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether waterboarding counts as torture under the convention.

You are a dishonest person and a liar to boot. This doubt existed only in the mind of right-wing idiots. The text of the convention is quite clear, so do read up on it.

Regardless, I wasn't speaking to the legality of waterboarding, only the morality and effectiveness.

Yeah right, you dishonest liar, in a thread about the legality of such an action you just decided to speak up. But anyway, you don't get to toss out the law at a whim, idiot.

Oh, it is all about the senior people now, is it?

They being the only ones who were ever waterboarded, yes. I thought I've been reasonably clear about that.

Apparently you cannot even remember your own words.

Did you support the waterboarding of suspected/known al-Qaeda members at Gitmo, by any chance?

I do (not that it was done at Gitmo or has been done for several years). The information has proved invaluable. Any information from those interrogations, though, is inadmissible in court. Use outside of court is a different matter.

Do you see the suspected/known bit there? And you still agreed.

It hasn't been used on people who were not known beyond doubt to be terrorists. If you have some fantasy that it's been used in a much larger scale than the three on whom it was used some years ago, then we have little to discuss.

The USA has tortured directly or by proxy far more than those three, mostly in black sites and extraordinary renditions, going so far as to slash the genitals of suspects, electrocuting them etc. Really, do you know anything at all?

That once you begin to use techniques which are considered tortue.

In this case, the US government decided to stop at a technique that could be argued was not torture.

An argument that has never held up under scrutiny. Would you feel ok if waterboarding were used in normal trials? For example, would you agree with waterboarding suspected murderers? If not, it is torture.

You must consider using them all.

OK. Considering, though, does not mean using them unless there is actually a pressing reason to do so. There is none. Lesser techniques, like waterboarding, seem to work quite well enough.

Apparently not, seeing as how the US has the habit of torturing people outside Gunatanamo as well.

he names someone else and claims that person(Lets call him Bob)

If "Bob" is a brand new name to the interrogators, it's likely that they'll be properly skeptical.

More than doubtful, considering they nabbed many innocents and that the majority of people in Guantanamo were found to be innocent.

Generally speaking, they had a very good idea of who the top leadership of AQ was. That isn't really the kind of thing they were trying to get. In real life, there doesn't seem to have to have been any innocent "Bobs" apprehended due to waterboarding.

While a direct connection is hard to prove, the US did indeed capture many innocents.

You bring Bob in, you put him down and start putting him through the same treatment,

Except, of course, that, if they brought in even any guilty "Bobs" at all, they didn't waterboard them.

No, they just brought them to syria to have their penis slashed with knifes. Oh, and to be electrocuted. Or to be beaten into senselessnes. Or to have their fingernails pulled.

You do realize, by the way, that intelligence is more than just confessions and naming names, right? It's revealing methods, structure, places, plans, dates, times, and a myriad other things

And how is waterboarding effective in that? The US army own interrogators spoke against it being an effective tool. The german master interrogator of WWII said it was ineffective. Are you an idiot?

And because you've already said your willing to torture to save lives, you best torture these people as well,

That they've only had to waterboard three people rather leads me to conclude that other measures are usually sufficiently effective or that the remaining terrorists did not have information as valuable.

Yes, other measures like slashing your dick with a knife.

You've got yourself stuck on the Slippery Slope here. You've assumed that having done one thing once (or three times as in this case), then people have no choice but to continue further and deeper. As we've seen in real life, that is not the case. They waterboarded three very senior people back in 2002, and stopped.

....and continued to flew others to have their dicks slashed with knives. What planet do you spend most of your time on? Because it sure as hell is not this one where this information has all been available for a long time.

[Glocksman]

Fuck.

I wanted to keep the confession, but there's just no way to justify what was done. Branch was drugged then mind-raped to get the confession.

Succinct and to the point.
As much as the 'emotional' part of me screams 'kill the bitch', the rational part of me screams 'violation of her civil rights' and frankly all of us have more to fear from any government that feels free to be able to ignore its constitution or basic law than we do from 'agents of heaven' or al-quaeda.


That said, while the information she gave up under duress is 'fruit of the poisoned tree' and barred from use in a criminal trial, it doesn't prevent the CIA and DIMO(N) from using the information in their counterespionage efforts that won't result in a criminal trial (disinformation, removal from access to classified documents, etc.).

[Ted C]

Well, I was fine with the interrogation until Luga admitted that she had projected images of torture into the suspect's brain. The pheromones I would let slide, the verbal threat I would let slide, but the mind control... not so much.

[Setzer]

Even though using her confession would be expedient, I do not think it was obtained in a legal fashion. The law can be changed, but for now, I would say that testimony is inadmissible.

[Questor]

I once had an Evidence Procedure professor who put it quite well when talking about the 4th amendment. It made so much sense to me that I wrote it in the front of the book.

"There is a difference between evidence and intelligence, from a legal standpoint. If you have decided that you need intelligence rather than evidence, you had better have a damn good reason, and be ready to take the consequences. Once you start trying to get intelligence, you have basically thrown out any opportunity for a conviction. Sometimes rescuing a victim, for example, is more important to you than a conviction, but you have to understand that making that decision will most likely cost you your career, as well as leaving a criminal on the street."

I think that when the brought Luga in, they went from "evidence" to "intelligence". The confession should be thrown out.

[Darth Yoshi]

I once had an Evidence Procedure professor who put it quite well when talking about the 4th amendment. It made so much sense to me that I wrote it in the front of the book.

"There is a difference between evidence and intelligence, from a legal standpoint. If you have decided that you need intelligence rather than evidence, you had better have a damn good reason, and be ready to take the consequences. Once you start trying to get intelligence, you have basically thrown out any opportunity for a conviction. Sometimes rescuing a victim, for example, is more important to you than a conviction, but you have to understand that making that decision will most likely cost you your career, as well as leaving a criminal on the street."

I think that when the brought Luga in, they went from "evidence" to "intelligence". The confession should be thrown out.

I've not thought about it like that. It's a good point.

There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether waterboarding counts as torture under the convention.

Even if you're right about that, and you're not, the fact remains that the US tried Japanese soldiers for waterboarding among other things after WW2. So you're still wrong, but US precedent has already established waterboarding as a form of torture.

[Count Chocula]

Even if you're right about that, and you're not, the fact remains that the US tried Japanese soldiers for waterboarding among other things after WW2. So you're still wrong, but US precedent has already established waterboarding as a form of torture.

This is a little bit of an apples and oranges comparison. The Japanese version of waterboarding consisted of the elements we know, plus beatings with the interrogation, plus the victim swallowing water until their stomach was full, then punching or jumping on the victim's water-filled stomach until they vomited, then repeating. Comparing the use of pheromones (let's say drugging) and the perceived as real threat of mutilation with the reality of sensory deprivation and the sensation of drowning (no battery or jumping on stomachs in the American version) is like comparing a bee sting to a hornet's swarm.

How do you think plea bargains are done? It's an established interrogation technique among US police forces to vividly, and in fine detail, reveal what may happen to suspects convicted of particualarly heinous crimes if they are imprisoned. Gay rape, anyone? It's a given that a police interrogator will attempt to create mind pictures in the suspect's mind of the vast negative consequences of their non-cooperation with the interrogators. Luga's approach directly implanted those consequences in an already-caught spy's mind. As I said before, the influence of her miasma may create a reason to throw out the testimony, and it is rather...unusual...for a suspect to fear pre-incarceration consequences.

Regardless, this entire tangent of interrogation is hardly germane to Ms. Branch's sentencing. Remember that before the interrogation, she was already revealed as an agent of Heaven. Even if all the evidence of her testimony under FBI/Luga's interrogation is thrown out, she's already dug her grave. I can't see Judge Candlass ruling that she should be freed even if her interrogation evidence is discarded as a matter of legality.

[Master_Baerne]

Do confessed/irrefutably proven traitors even get constitutional rights? Or, for that matter, could Ms. Branch simply have her citizenship removed for said treason, rendering the whole point of whether or not painting pictures in people's minds is constitutional or not?

[Simon_Jester]

A) Yes, traitors have constitutional rights. There is no language in the Constitution of the United States that exempts traitors. The Founders were very nervous about the idea of a broad definition of "treason" and broad powers for punishing "traitors," which is why they put language into the document to explicitly define treason down to a fairly narrow range of extreme actions.

B) Can her citizenship be removed, revoking her rights? Probably not. I'm not entirely certain, but since she's apparently not a naturalized citizen (she was born here), the burden of evidence would be on the government to establish that she intentionally tried to revoke her own citizenship. And I don't think it would be very practical to do that, because you'd run into the same problem.

C) Remember, if she is not convicted of treason then under American law she is not a traitor. Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, remember?

By that standard of evidence, it's going to be hard to show her to be a traitor without the confession, which is not admissible as evidence. We know information given to Ms. Branch wound up in enemy hands, but how do we know how it happened? Did she divulge the information intentionally or unintentionally? Did she know the evidence was going to end up in the hands of the enemy? Maybe she talks in her sleep and a little flappy cherub was hiding under her bed; we don't know. Again, reasonable doubt.

Without the confession, proving treason becomes far more difficult. Proving espionage, or giving out of classified information, would be easier. But that's not the same thing, and it definitely doesn't revoke your constitutional rights.

D) Think of the implication of that from a constitutional standpoint. If the government can declare you a proven traitor, which revokes your rights, and therefore revokes your right to a fair trial, before a fair trial finds you guilty of treason... what stops the government from doing this whenever the hell it wants?

I have to think that this part is being written for the bennifit of the third book, cause I cant think of any reason why this trial is even taking place. What ever happened to turning a spy , I am pretty sure that Luga would make an interesting control.

Declan

I'm not sure she'd make a good double agent.

The best double agents are single agents who aren't hardcore devotees of their own cause, or who are but can easily be pressured into betraying that cause. Since fundamentalist religion comes with a martyrdom meme, it's going to be very difficult to turn her reliably.

I suspect that the possibility of turning her was considered and rejected in favor of pressing charges in some kind of secret trial. I'm not sure exactly what the details of the trial are, but I suspect that if the judge orders "and don't let word get out that she was accused in the first place," it's still possible for that order to be obeyed.

[Michael Garrity]

Greetings all:

As much as I would approve of Luga's tactics (seeing as how that woman is a traitor to humanity), I would hope that the judge is wise enough to throw out the information gained thereby. In my Constitutional Law classes, we had the concept of the 'Fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine drilled into our heads.
If this information were ruled admissible, it would create a precedent so grave as to reach beyond the current crisis.

Mike Garrity

[Serafina]

B) Can her citizenship be removed, revoking her rights? Probably not. I'm not entirely certain, but since she's apparently not a naturalized citizen (she was born here), the burden of evidence would be on the government to establish that she intentionally tried to revoke her own citizenship. And I don't think it would be very practical to do that, because you'd run into the same problem.

Wait, they can revoke such fundamental protection?
You can be stripped of your freedom of assembly, freedom of press, academic freedom, freedom of association, secrecy of correspondence, righ of asylum and right of possesion in Germany, according to §18 GG - but thats it, thats the maximum of basic protection you can loose.

No matter what you do, you still have the right for a fair trial.

[Simon_Jester]

B) Can her citizenship be removed, revoking her rights? Probably not. I'm not entirely certain, but since she's apparently not a naturalized citizen (she was born here), the burden of evidence would be on the government to establish that she intentionally tried to revoke her own citizenship. And I don't think it would be very practical to do that, because you'd run into the same problem.

Wait, they can revoke such fundamental protection?
You can be stripped of your freedom of assembly, freedom of press, academic freedom, freedom of association, secrecy of correspondence, righ of asylum and right of possesion in Germany, according to §18 GG - but thats it, thats the maximum of basic protection you can loose.

No matter what you do, you still have the right for a fair trial.

I know that under US law, under certain specific conditions, your citizenship can be revoked. I do not know precisely what those conditions are, or what rights you are considered to have as a noncitizen. I do not know exactly what law would govern her treatment if this happened.

Naturalized citizenship may be revoked if the citizen commits a serious crime. If you are a native-born American citizen, I do not know if your citizenship can be revoked in response to any crime, no matter how great the crime is.

The only way I know of that I can imagine Ms. Branch's citizenship being revoked by is based on the grounds that she has served in the armed forces of a foreign government. This would be difficult to prove, and possibly outright false because she is not a member of a uniformed armed service that meets the definition of armed service under international law. And it would seem easy to defend her on grounds that she was under the influence of angelic mind control, and therefore did not voluntarily commit an act that would revoke her citizenship.

I do not think that any revocation of Ms. Branch's citizenship is a realistic legal possibility, since it is only ever done in very unusual or extreme cases. Even if it was done, I don't think it would truly "revoke her rights." As you probably noticed, I was responding to Master_Baerne.

[Questor]

Wait, they can revoke such fundamental protection?
You can be stripped of your freedom of assembly, freedom of press, academic freedom, freedom of association, secrecy of correspondence, righ of asylum and right of possesion in Germany, according to §18 GG - but thats it, thats the maximum of basic protection you can loose.

No matter what you do, you still have the right for a fair trial.

The United States allows you to renounce you're citizenship, which is what I think he was referring to. The problem is that the courts have ruled numerous times that certain rights are not exclusive to citizens.

As for the need for a confession, Article III, Section 3 has this to say about the crime of treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

18 USC 2381 says:

whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

On the topic of revocation of citizenship, the INS has a document here: http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/ina340.htm I can't find any references to a way to strip a natural born citizen of their citizenship, they have to renounce it.

[Simon_Jester]

The United States allows you to renounce you're citizenship, which is what I think he was referring to. The problem is that the courts have ruled numerous times that certain rights are not exclusive to citizens.

I fail to see the problem with that.

You're pretty much right, I was referring to the case of someone who committed an act that would revoke their citizenship. You don't have to fill out a "can I revoke my citizenship" form as I understand it; if you do it, then there's some panel or board or such that is responsible for reviewing your case. It doesn't happen very often, and I really don't know the details. But as I understand it, it's not plausibly applicable to Ms. Branch's case in any event.

As for the need for a confession, Article III, Section 3 has this to say about the crime of treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

I've heard that the "two witnesses" requirement has since been waived; the standards of evidence are now the same as for murder. Thus, material evidence is likely to be as important as, if not more important than, the number of witnesses.

On the topic of revocation of citizenship, the INS has a document here: http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/ina340.htm I can't find any references to a way to strip a natural born citizen of their citizenship, they have to renounce it.

[/quote]I believe that in certain cases, they can be found to have renounced it by default, but (again) this hardly ever actually happens.

[Questor]

You're pretty much right, I was referring to the case of someone who committed an act that would revoke their citizenship. You don't have to fill out a "can I revoke my citizenship" form as I understand it; if you do it, then there's some panel or board or such that is responsible for reviewing your case. It doesn't happen very often, and I really don't know the details. But as I understand it, it's not plausibly applicable to Ms. Branch's case in any event.

I don't disagree with you at all. I should have elaborated more on what I intended with the word renounce. As I understand it there's a couple of different things that count. The ones I remember (and this is probably not an inclusive list, as the last time I looked at citizenship laws was high school) are voting in a foreign election and serving in a foreign military.

I've heard that the "two witnesses" requirement has since been waived; the standards of evidence are now the same as for murder. Thus, material evidence is likely to be as important as, if not more important than, the number of witnesses.

I'd be very skeptical of that, especially as there hasn't been a treason trial (rather than charge) that I can find in recent memory. The courts would have to declare the article arcane (which it probably is) and interpret it, but no trial court would do that, and I doubt even an appeals court would. They'd leave it to the USSC.

I believe that in certain cases, they can be found to have renounced it by default, but (again) this hardly ever actually happens.

Renouncing by default would be interesting, are you referring to the "vote in foreign election" type things?

[Serafina]

Hm, it works somewhat like this here:

-You loose your citizenship when you serve in a foreign military, or gain citizenship in another country (with exceptions).
However, this just means that you are treated as any other citizen of another country.

-You can be stripped of several basic rights (freedom of assembly, freedom of press, academic freedom, freedom of association, secrecy of correspondence, righ of asylum and right of possesion) - but only if you are actively using them to destroy the "freiheitly demokratische Grundordnung" - freedom, democracy and order. This can only be done by the Bundesverfassungsgericht -our constitutional court.
You still have all your other human rights, and all rules at a court still apply to you.