Charles Swift

Charles D. Swift (born 1961) is an American attorney and former career Navy officer, who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps.

He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay; Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court.

Born in 1961, Charles Swift is a native of Franklin, North Carolina.

He went to local schools and gained an appointment and admission to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Following his graduation in 1984, Swift served in a variety of surface warfare billets as described in the below table.

In 1991, he left active service to attend Seattle University School of Law, as authorized by the Navy, where he graduated cum laude. Resuming active service in 1994, he joined the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps.

A comprehensive biography can be found here (website for the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy, different from LCDR Swift's commissioning source).

Summary of LCDR Swift's assignments:

After several years, he was approved to attend law school and, after graduation, in 1994 became a member of the Navy's legal corps.

Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, was captured during the US invasion of Afghanistan, and held from 2002 at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

In 2003, he was assigned to the Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions, serving into early 2007.

There he was assigned as defense counsel to Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

Because of his challenges, Swift was helping make the law on detainee treatment in the war on terror.

He was charged in July 2004 with conspiracy to commit terrorism.

As Hamdan's legal counsel, Swift was assisted in the defense by the Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie and Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University Law Professor.

They appealed Hamdan's writ of habeas corpus petition to the US Supreme Court.

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 126 S.Ct.

2749 (2006), the Court ruled that the military commission to try Hamdan was illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions as well as the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

It held that Congress needed to authorize a process for detainee tribunals.

The court ruled that the military commissions as established by the Dept. of Defense were flawed and illegal according to the US Uniform Code of Military Justice and Geneva Convention.

In 2005 and June 2006, the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.

Swift used the civil courts to challenge the constitutionality of the military tribunals and the legal treatment of detainees in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), a case that went to the US Supreme Court and was decided in his client's favor.

As a result, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to authorize a form of military tribunals and incorporate the Court's concerns about reconciliation with the US Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.

During his Navy career, Swift served in a variety of assignments, including at sea.

In June 2006, Swift learned he had been "passed over" by the Navy (a second time) for promotion; as a result, under the military's "up or out" system, he had to retire in the spring of 2007.

He learned of being passed over two weeks after the Supreme Court decided in Hamdan's favor, and intended to continue defending Hamdan as a civilian.

The US Navy lawyer successfully represented the plaintiff Guantanamo detainee in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) and took his case to the US Supreme Court.

As a result, the administration requested, and Congress passed, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, to authorize a form of military tribunals to try the detainee cases.

The president signed the law October 17, 2006.

From 2007 through 2008, Swift taught at Emory Law School as a Visiting Associate Professor and Acting Director of its newly established International Humanitarian Law Clinic.

Beginning in 2007, Hamdan was charged under the new law and in 2008 tried by a military jury of the Military Commissions.

It acquitted him of conspiracy for terrorism but convicted him of assisting efforts.

It sentenced him to five and a half years, crediting him for the time he had already been detained.

Hamdan was convicted of one of his charges in 2008 but credited for time detained.

He was returned to Yemen in 2008.

Swift worked to appeal his conviction.

In November 2008, the US transferred Hamdan to Yemen, where he served the last month of his sentence.

After release, he rejoined his family in Sana.

In October 2012, Hamdan was acquitted of all charges in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In 2014, Swift joined Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America as its Director.