David J. R. Frakt

David Frakt is an American lawyer, law professor, and officer in the United States Air Force Reserve.

Career Frakt is notable for his appointment to defend Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Jawad, an alleged combatant facing charges for events that took place when he was a minor. This episode was later dramatized in the 2017 documentary film Law School Confidential. The school closed in 2021.

Challenged Brigadier Thomas Hartmann's role Frakt speaks in 2008, criticizing Hartmann's history in the case.

On June 19, 2008 Frakt challenged the role of Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann in choosing his client Mohammed Jawad for trial. Deborah Colson, of Human Rights First, in a report in the Huffington Post, called the argument a "most powerful indictment of Bush administration policies." Michael Winship, of Bill Moyer's Journal, called the argument "an unusual and especially fine expression of American patriotism." Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Anthony Lewis described the argument as "a remarkable display of legal and moral courage." Frakt also argued, during his challenge of Hartmann's unlawful influence, that the Prosecution had failed to release important records to the Defense, and that this showed that the process through which Jawad was charged was rushed and without proper preparation.

On August 14, 2008 Henley barred Hartmann from future participation in Mohammed Jawad's commission. According to Mike Melia, writing for the Associated Press, Henley ruled that Hartmann: "...compromised his objectivity in public statements aligning himself with prosecutors and defending the Pentagon's system for prosecuting alleged terrorists."

However, Henley chose not to dismiss the charges against Jawad because of Hartmann's controversial conduct. Based on these records, Frakt sought to have the charges against Jawad dismissed on the grounds of torture and "outrageous government conduct." Frakt reported at Jawad's June 19, 2008 Commission hearing that those records showed that Jawad had been moved 112 times in a two-week period in May 2004. He said Vandeveld, whose resignation document has not yet been released: "could no longer continue to serve ethically as a prosecutor." According to The New York Times, Frakt said Vandeveld had been "troubled" by the orders he had been given. Frakt told The New York Times that Vandeveld had recommended a plea bargain and early release for Jawad, and had been overruled. Vandeveld later testified in a hearing on September 27, 2008 at Guantanamo that exculpatory evidence had been withheld from the Jawad defense, and that he had resigned because of concerns about the discovery process and his inability to determine whether all relevant discovery had been disclosed to the defense due to "systemic problems" with discovery at the Office of Military Commissions.

Mohammed Jawad's noncombatant status

In July 2009 US District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled Mohammed Jawad was a noncombatant. On July 28, 2009 Frakt filed a motion in Mohammed's military commission following Huvelle's ruling. He argued that the military commissions were only authorized to try illegal enemy combatants, and since he was officially a noncombatant his military commission lacked jurisdiction.

Efforts to support Mohammed Jawad's re-integration into Afghan society

On September 21, 2009 historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, published a letter from Frakt that documented the role he and his colleagues had hoped to play in Mohammed Jawad's re-integration into Afghan society. Frakt had argued to Susan Crawford that while civilian Defense attorneys didn't traditionally play a role in the lives of their clients, after their trials, the tradition for military Defense counsel was the opposite. Further, he argued that, as a child captive the literature strongly recommended the released captive be in the company of trusted adults—and the only trusted adults in his life recently had been his Defense counsel.

Frakt also described, at length, the significant role played by his colleagues on "Team Jawad", Commander Katharine Doxakis, Major Eric Montalvo USMCR, Captain Chris Kannady, USMC, civilian counsels Hina Shamsi, Jonathan Hafetz, Art Spitzer, military and civilian paralegals, a team of law students from Duke University, and a law student named Joe Pace, from Yale Law School. Frakt argued that those Guantanamo captives who were to be tried, should be tried in a regular court of law, not the irregular military commissions.

He congratulated Attorney General Eric Holder for his plans to try the most senior suspects in civilian court.