Colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 Lawrence J. Morris is a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

.

Academic career

Morris graduated from Marquette University

Marquette University

Marquette University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1881, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities...

's law school in 1982.
Morris had previously earned a double major at Marquette in Political Science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 and Journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

.

In 1997 Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant colonel

Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...

 Morris served as the head of the Criminal Law department of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General

Judge Advocate General's Corps

Judge Advocate General's Corps, also known as JAG or JAG Corps, refers to the legal branch or specialty of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, and Navy. Officers serving in the JAG Corps are typically called Judge Advocates. The Marine Corps and Coast Guard do not maintain separate JAG Corps...

's School, which has full American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

 accreditation for its post-juris-doctoral

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 graduate course that confers a Master of Laws degree (or LLM) to its graduates. Like nearly all of his peers who are field grade Army officers on active duty as a Judge Advocate, Col. Morris holds an LLM in Military Law awarded by the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General School on the campus of the University of Virginia.

Morris also studied at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces

Industrial College of the Armed Forces

The Industrial College of the Armed Forces is a U.S. military educational institution tasked with preparing military officers and civilian government officials for leadership and executive positions in the field of national security...

, where he earned a Masters of Science in
National Security Strategy

National Security Strategy of the United States

The National Security Strategy is a document prepared periodically by the executive branch of the government of the United States for Congress which outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and how the administration plans to deal with them. The legal foundation for the...

.

Military career

From 2005-2006 Morris served as the Staff Judge Advocate to the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

In early 2007 Morris was the Chief of the U.S. Army Trial Defense Service, where he was responsible for the work and professional training of all uniformed Army defense attorneys as they represented soldiers accused of crimes under the UCMJ. He also served as a co-founder of the Law and Order Task Force in Iraq and received a Bronze Star for his service.

In the fall of 2007 Colonel Morris replaced Colonel Morris Davis

Morris Davis

Colonel Morris D. Davis is a United States Air Force officer and lawyer, was appointed to serve as the third Chief Prosecutor in the Guantanamo military commissions....

 as Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. Davis resigned after a public disagreement with Brigadier General

Brigadier General

Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...

 Thomas W. Hartmann

Thomas W. Hartmann

Thomas W. Hartmann is an American lawyer and officer in the United States Air Force Reserve. He has 32 years of criminal, commercial and civil litigation experience. Between 1983 and 1991 he was a prosecutor and defense counsel in the Air Force, including duties as Chief Air Force Prosecutor in...

, the Chief Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority for the Office of Military Commissions. Davis had publicly called for Hartmann to resign.

In 2002, Morris was the head of the Army’s criminal law branch and was tasked with planning the first prosecution of suspected 9/11 terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal, back in 2002 “he proposed a high-profile public trial that would lay bare the scope of al Qaeda’s alleged conspiracy while burnishing the ideals of American justice.” His legal advice was disregarded by the Bush administration, which decided to interrogate terrorists in secret—perhaps to gain critical intelligence necessary—to prevent further attacks, rather than seek justice through high profile trials. Ironically, Morris has now been asked to finally conduct the trials.

Morris [has compared] the planned military trial of Mohammed and the five other defendants to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, where Nazi war criminals were prosecuted. Morris said that the tribunals would focus on laying out a comprehensive view of the suspects' connections to terrorism, demonstrating the "sophistication of the Al Qaeda operation" around the world.

Morris had been assigned by the Army to begin planning for military commissions following President George W. Bush's November 2001 announcement that the U.S. would try suspected terrorists in special tribunals. Morris said he clashed with administration officials who wanted to restrict the legal rights given to detainees, including the right to defense counsel, the right to confront prosecution witnesses and the right to attend all trial proceedings.

Morris had also written an August 2002 memo arguing that the government should open its prosecution of detainees with a group trial of senior Al Qaeda operatives. He said that doing so would expose the full extent of Al Qaeda's crimes and help explain to the world why the military commission system was necessary.

Comments on the testimony of the witness known as "OC-1"

The Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

 identified Morris as the Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commission

Guantanamo military commission

The Guantanamo military commissions are military tribunals created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for prosecuting detainees held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps.- History :...

s.
Michelle Shephard

Michelle Shephard

Michelle Shephard is an investigative reporter with the Toronto Star newspaper in Canada. She has been awarded the Michener Award for public service journalism and twice won Canada's top newspaper prize, the National Newspaper Award. In 2011, she was an associate producer on an Oscar-nominated...

 of the Star quoted Morris's comments about the accidental release of unredacted testimony from a witness known as OC-1, prior to a hearing where the legality of Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr

Omar Ahmed Khadr is a Canadian child soldier and one of the juveniles held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He was convicted of five charges under the United States Military Commissions Act of 2009 including murder in violation of the law of war and providing material support for terrorism,...

 combatant status was to be considered.

Excerpts from OC-1's secret testimony seemed to contradict the Prosecution's earlier account that Khadr had been the sole survivor of an aerial bombardment that mortally wounded Green Beret Sergeant

Sergeant

Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

 Christopher Speer

Christopher Speer

Sergeant First Class Christopher James Speer was a combat medic with a Delta Force team who was mortally wounded during a skirmish in Afghanistan, on July 27, 2002...

.
Morris commented:

Announcement of new charges for Mohammed al Qahtani

On 18 November 2008 Morris announced that he was filing new charges against Mohammed al Qahtani.
The Bush administration acknowledged subjecting Al Qahtani to 58 days of sleep deprivation and other extreme interrogation methods in the fall of 2002, when intelligence officials realized he had tried to travel to the United States in the months preceding al Qaeda's September 11 attacks.
Morris's prosecution team had proposed charges against Al Qahtani to Susan Crawford in early 2008. Crawford, the Office of Military Commissions "Convening Authority

Convening Authority

The term convening authority is used in United States military law to refer to an individual whose job includes appointing officers to play a role in a court-martial, or similar military tribunal or military commission...

", has the final say over whether charges are confirmed, and she did not confirm the first set of charges against Al Qahtani. Crawford is not required to explain her decisions, and she did not offer a public explanation for dropping the charges against Al Qahtani. Commentators speculated that the charges were dropped because the after-effects of the extreme interrogation methods had left his mental health too fragile.

During his only testimony that has been made public—his testimony before his 2006 Administrative Review Board

Administrative Review Board

The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the suspects held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....

 hearing—Al Qahtani acknowledged confessing to extensive ties to al Qaeda, and the 9-11 hijacking plot, but he claimed all his confessions were from the two months he was being tortured, and he had recanted them at every opportunity since then.

When announcing the new charges, Morris stated that the new charges were based on “independent and reliable evidence”.
He stated:

“His conduct is significant enough that he falls into the category of people who ought to be held accountable by being brought to trial.”

Retirement announcement

Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington is a British historian, journalist, and film director.He has published three books, and been published in numerous publications.In 2009 Worthington was the co-director of a documentary about the Guantanamo detainees....

 reported on May 6, 2009, that Lawrence Morris was retiring from active duty, and would be replaced, as Chief Prosecutor, by John Murphy

John F. Murphy (JAG)

John Murphy is an American lawyer and officer in the United States Naval Reserve.Andy Worthington reported on May 6, 2009, that Murphy was replacing Lawrence Morris as Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions, and that Morris was retiring from active duty.On December 12, 2008, while...

, a Captain in the United States Naval Reserve. The retirement ceremony and party were held on Friday, June 12, 2009. Lawrence will be officially retired on September 1, 2009.