Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein.

• Author: Davis, Richard B., Jr.
• Position: Book review

Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein

By Martin A. Newton and Michael P. Scharf

Those of us who practice trial law on a regular basis have had, on occasion, an unappreciative client. Ironically, it is usually the unappreciative client for whom we obtain more justice than they may have desired. Still, it is extremely unlikely that any of us (with the possible exception of the defense attorney for former Governor Blagojevich) have ever been labeled an "enemy of the state" for doing our best for a client.

But that happened in Baghdad, Iraq, near the end of Saddam Hussein's trial. Hussein's court-appointed defense counsel, considered by some to be the "bravest" and "most principled" member of the bar involved in the trial, stood to deliver the closing argument that Hussein's paid attorneys should have delivered.

It was Hussein's plan to generate world opinion against the trial and, even if he lost, to make himself a martyr to the Arab cause. To have effective assistance of counsel at the all-important summing up was seen by him as detrimental. "If you present the argument, I will consider you my personal enemy and an enemy of the state," he told his court-appointed attorney.

This and many more curious, difficult, and unique situations and circumstances were overcome to bring justice to Iraq for those Iraqis murdered at the behest of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

This fascinating story of Hussein's trial and execution is told by two guys on the inside, law professors Mike Newton of Vanderbilt University Law School and Michael Scharf of Case Western Reserve University Law School. These two experts are, I should point out, both in-depth academics in the theory of international crimes and tribunals, and as Dizzy Dean once said, they have also "done it" in the real world. From Rwanda to Sierra Leone, from the Balkans to Iraq, these two advocates and communicators have taken justice around the world as contractors for the Department of Justice in the name of the U.S.

Both authors are quite objective in describing the victories and the errors and resulting consequences of the Iraqi High Tribunal. Their "warts and all" comparison of the Dujail trial to the Nuremberg trials after World War II is academically disciplined and well thought out. The book is both historically...