James Pohl

James Pohl   (officer, lawyer)
Alma mater	University of California (Los Angeles), Pepperdine University, Command and General Staff College
US Army judge at the Guantanamo military commission who "conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to defending the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks".

Colonel James L. Pohl is is an American lawyer and officer in the United States Army. As a judge at Guantanamo, he "conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to defending the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks, according to a scathing court document."

Education and early career

In 1974, Pohl received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, followed four years later by a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University Law School. From 1981 to 1982, James Pohl was a defender of the US Army at Fort Knox. he was Senior trial Counsel there from 1982 to 1984. He then worked for the US Army in Korea for a year. Pohl then worked in Texas from 1985 to 1988. In 1988, he received a Master of Laws in Military Law from The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. in 1988, Pohl went to Bad Kreuznach as the person responsible for civil law. After that, he was stationed in[[Schweinfurt as a responsible officer at the local legal center. In 1990, he returned to the United States to work for the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency in Virginia. In 1994, James Pohl became a legal advisor for the Department of the Army Headquarters (HQDA). From 1995 to 1996, Pohl studied at the Command and General Staff College in Kansas. In 1996, he became a member of the US Army Regional Defense Council at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Pohl worked as a military disciplinary lawyer from 1998 to 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he was then a military judge on 2. U.S. Army Judicial District at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Two years later, he became the presiding judge of the 5th Judicial District of the US Army in Heidelberg.

Guantanamo "trials"

In December 2008, Pohl was appointed to replace Ralph Kohlmann as the Chief Presiding Officer (judge) for the Guantanamo military commission. He presided over the Commission of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ammar al-Baluchi, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. From November 2011 to July 2014, Pohl also presided over the military commission of Abd el-Rahim al-Nashiri.

A 2013 filing from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's defense lawyers stated that judge Pohl, "in concert with the prosecution, manipulated secret proceedings and the use of secret orders", preventing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's defense team from learning Pohl had permitted the Obama administration to destroy the evidence. The filing did not specify what the destroyed evidence was. Classified annexes accompanying the filing remain withheld.

According to the defense filing, six months after Pohl issued an evidence-preservation order at the defense's behest and over the prosecution’s objections, judge Pohl "authorized the government to destroy the evidence in question". Pohl’s reversal of course was "the result of secret communications between the government and Judge Pohl, which he conducted without the knowledge of defense counsel".

Destroying the evidence in secret while permitting the defense to believe it had been preserved has "substantially gutted" the credibility of the military commission and "irreparably harmed" Mohammed’s ability to defend himself in a death-penalty case, the lawyers say. The episode "call[s] into question Judge Pohl’s impartiality".

Other cases

He is notable for serving as the judge of several of the GIs in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse cases.

Pohl was assigned to serve as the investigating officer for the hearing for Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.

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