Morris Davis Colonel Morris D . Davis ( born July 31 , 1958 ) is a United States Air Force officer and lawyer , was appointed to serve as the third Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions . , September 2005 until October 2007 . He resigned from the position due to objecting to the appointment of William J . Haynes , II , former General Counsel of the Department of Defense , as Presiding Officer of the commissions . He retired from active duty in October 2008 . Awards . Davis has received the following awards and recognition . Guantanamo service . Unlike his predecessors , Fred Borch and Robert L . Swann , Davis has been a visible public figure . His statements have triggered controversy . Questionable claims . A " National Post " article published January 10 , 2006 contained extensive quotes from Davis ' s arguments before the commission , including one in which Davis said : " Thanks to the American medics who stepped over their dead friend and tended to Mr . Khadr , he ' s alive today , " SFC Christopher Speer , a Special Forces medic , was fatally wounded along with two coalition forces , and multiple U . S . forces were wounded and evacuated as a result of the firefight in which Omar Khadr was captured . Though medics did not step over Speer ' s body to tend to Khadr ' s wounds , two dead coalition forces lay nearby as Khadr was receiving treatment and evacuation . SFC Speer was evacuated from the scene and died in a hospital ten days after the firefight . Davis asserted that Sergeant Layne Morris was wounded by the same grenade that mortally wounded Speer . But at least one newspaper account described Morris being wounded prior to the aerial bombardment , and evacuated four hours prior to Speer ' s wounding . Comments on the character of the suspects and their attorneys . Khadr ' s attorney , Muneer Ahmad of American University , accused Colonel Davis of ethical misconduct for referring to Khadr as a " terrorist " and a " murderer " during the January 10 , 2006 press conference . Ahmad asked the Presiding Officer to sanction Colonel Davis for the comments , but the presiding officer found the comments were fair and balanced , given the repeated negative out of court statements Ahmad had made for months prior to the hearing . When asked why the prosecution had finally broken its silence , Davis said : On February 28 , 2006 Davis spoke out again regarding the commissions , saying : In March 2007 Davis challenged Major Michael Mori , the military defense counsel assigned to Hicks ' case , by threatening him with prosecution for violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice . He claimed that Mori had acted improperly in criticizing the military commissions while in Australia gathering evidence for the defense . Mori responded angrily , " Are they trying to intimidate me ? " Col . Dwight Sullivan , the Chief Defense Counsel for the military commissions , said that Major Mori ’ s behavior as defense counsel was “ absolutely proper . ” He said that , “ a military defense lawyer is supposed to provide the same level of representation as a civilian lawyer . ” He said that in pressing Mr . Hicks ’ s case in Australia , “ Major Mori is fulfilling his duty as an officer and as an attorney . ” " The Guantánamo I Know " . On June 26 , 2007 an op - ed by Davis , entitled " The Guantanamo I know " , was published in the " New York Times " . In it , Davis argued that the Guantánamo Bay detention center is humane , professional , and operating in compliance with international law . Supreme court to hear challenges to the Military Commissions Act . Congress authorized the military commission system under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 , to create an alternative to the existing federal and military system . It restricted detainees as enemy combatants and those whose review was pending , to the military commission process ; it prohibited their use of federal courts . The government stayed pending writs of habeas corpus . On June 29 , 2007 the Supreme Court agreed to hear some outstanding claims of habeas corpus . , opening up the possibility that they might overturn some or all of the Military Commissions Act . Davis called the Supreme Court ' s intention to review the MCA " meddling " : Resignation as Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay . In October 2007 Colonel Davis resigned from his position as Chief Prosecutor . He had made the policy that evidence obtained from the use of waterboarding , which he considered torture , would not be admissible as evidence in the military commissions . By this time , charges were being developed against high - value detainees , some of whom had been waterboarded in the custody of the CIA . Davis was overruled in his policy by his superiors , including William J . Haynes , II , the General Counsel for the Department of Defense . Davis resigned in protest and transferred to become the Head of the Air Force Judiciary , stating , " The guy who said waterboarding is A - okay I was not going to take orders from . I quit . " He also charged that there was meddling from the Pentagon in cases , and claimed this presented serious conflicts of interest . Davis said he was denied an end - of - tour medal for his two years at Guantanamo because he resigned and later spoke out about problems in the Pentagon ' s Office of Military Commissions . Davis stated about the medal denial , " I tell the truth , and I get labeled as having served dishonorably . I ' m very concerned about the chilling effect . . . on the process " . Since his resignation , Davis has frequently spoken out against the Commissions . In 2008 Davis was called by the defense to testify in the military commission of Salim Ahmed Hamdan , Osama bin Laden ' s driver , where he repeated his accusations of political interference . He said Pentagon interest in the progress of trials of detainees greatly increased after September 2006 , when high - value detainees were transferred from the CIA to Guantanamo . Post - military career . Davis was named the head of the Foreign Affairs , Defense and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service in December 2008 ; and was fired from this job in late November or early December 2009 . This occurred because of an op - ed Davis wrote in the " Wall Street Journal " . Davis criticized a preliminary report from the inter - agency review team , which proposed using federal courts for trials of some detainees and military commissions for trials of others . He felt they needed to be treated consistently . Davis wrote : " The administration must choose . Either federal courts or military commissions , but not both , for the detainees that deserve to be prosecuted and punished for their past conduct . "