Venable attorney Sig Libowitz will show his award-winning 30-minute film, The Response, a courtroom drama based on actual transcripts of the Guantanamo military tribunals.  The film, which stars Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show), Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager) and Peter Riegert (Animal House, The Sopranos), depicts the tribunal of a suspected enemy combatant and the three military officers who, in the vein of Twelve Angry Men, must decide his fate.  Following the presentation of the film, Mr. Libowitz and an accomplished panel will discuss constitutional and moral implications of the tribunals.  A catered lunch is included.

Mr. Libowitz will be joined in the panel discussion by four attorneys and judges who participated in the prosecution and defense of Guantanamo detainees.

Morris Davis served as Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantanamo, leading a multi-agency task force of more than 100 personnel from multiple government agencies, before he resigned in protest over political interference and the use of evidence by torture.  He is a faculty member at the Howard University School of Law.

Kristine Huskey is Director of the Anti-Torture Program at Physicians for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where she leads the PHR advocacy for strengthening anti-torture policy and practice in the context of U.S. National Security. She was part of the legal team in Rasul v. Bush and has represented several Guantanamo detainees.  Ms. Huskey also teaches a national security seminar at Georgetown University Law Center.

Francis A. Gilligan, Professional Lecturer in Law, The George Washington University Law School, is Director of Training for the Military Commissions' prosecutors. He formerly served as chief trial judge for the U.S. Army.

Capt. Jason Wright, of the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, currently represents two Guantanamo detainees, Mr. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and Obaidullah.

Mr. Libowitz, a former movie studio executive, producer, actor, and screenwriter, wrote and produced The Response, in which he also portrays one of the three officers in the tribunal.  The film was shortlisted for the Academy Awards (one of only 10 films selected from around the world) and named the ABA Silver Gavel Award winner as best of the year in Drama and Literature.  (Past Silver Gavel Award winners include Judgment at Nuremberg, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Twelve Angry Men.) The film was executive produced by Venable and the University of Maryland School of Law, and was an official selection to seven Academy Award qualifying festivals. The Response has been screened at the Pentagon, the U.S. Congress, West Point, Harvard, Columbia, and the U.S. Army JAG School, among other places. Following the screening at the Pentagon, Mr. Libowitz was invited to serve as a legal observer to the continuing Military Commissions. For more information on the movie, visit the movie website, www.theresponsemovie.com, or Facebook at http://bit.ly/TheResponse-Facebook

This luncheon program is sponsored by the Courts, Lawyers and Administration of Justice Section. In cosponsorship with the Administrative Law and Agency Practice Section, the Antitrust and Consumer Law Section, the Arts, Entertainment, Media and Sports Law Section, District of Columbia Affairs Section, the Estates, Trusts and Probate Law Section, the Family Law Section, the Health Law Section, the International Law Section, the Labor and Employment Law Section, the Law Practice Management Section, the Litigation Section, the Real Estate, Housing and Land Use Section and the Taxation Section.