Morris Davis
Executive Director and Counsel
Morris Davis was an Air Force judge advocate for 25 years and retired as a Colonel. From September 2005 until October 2007, he was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He led a multi-agency prosecution task force of more than 100 personnel from the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies. For nearly two years he was one of the leading advocates for military commissions and the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
He resigned as chief prosecutor in October 2007 because of his objection to the use of evidence obtained by torture and growing political interference in the military commissions, and he became a critic of the process he once championed. His final military assignment was as director of the Air Force Judiciary where he oversaw the Air Force criminal justice system and supervised 265 people at sites around the world. He was a senior specialist in national security at the Congressional Research Service from December 2008 to January 2010. He became the executive director of the Crimes of War Education Project, a nonprofit organization that seeks to increase understanding of the laws of armed conflict worldwide, in August 2010.
Colonel Davis earned a BS in criminal justice from Appalachian State University, a JD from North Carolina Central University School of Law, a LLM in government procurement law from George Washington University School of Law, and a LLM in military law from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General School. His military decorations include the Legion of Merit, six Meritorious Service Medals, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He was included in the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington report, Those Who Dared: 30 Officials Who Stood Up for Our County, and he received the Justice Charles E. Whittaker Award from the Lawyers Association of Kansas City.
Jessica Q. Chen
Multimedia Editor
Jessica Q. Chen is a recent graduate from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she concentrated in investigative reporting with an emphasis in multimedia and visual journalism. She was a recipient of the 2010 Medill National Security Reporting Project, a three-month, multi-platform investigation on the national security implications of climate change. Her story on the health risks and lack of global disease surveillance was featured on A3 of the Washington Post in January of this year. Jessica receieved her B.S. in biology at the University of California, Irvine, and she researched animal behavior and ecology at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand. She speaks Mandarin fluently, and has done foreign correspondance in Macedonia and the Czech Republic. She has been published in the Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Businessweek, Entrepreneur magazine, Korean American Journal and AllBusiness.com. Her interests range from arts and digital reporting to envrionmental issues and documentary journalism.
