> One of the most damaging things Clive Stafford Smith has done is to give public support for Moazzem Begg, who was almost certainly a high-ranking member of al Qaeda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moazzam_Begg). (Sure, Begg should have gotten a fair trial -- he would have gone to court had the charges not been dropped, probably because the intelligence services didn't want to reveal all the intel they had gathered on him and his associates).

I don't know enough about this person to say one way or another whether he was a high ranking al qaeda member or not. But _even if he were_ I don't think insisting on a habeas corpus rights for detainees or decrying torture is a _damaging_ thing at all. It was up to the state; who originally imprisoned him and almost certainly tortured him to prove his guilt. They didn't even attempt to do this; and it likely had nothing to do with not wanting to reveal intel -- the 'court' he'd have been charged in had little to no due process, and the evidence was presented to a government tribunal, not to the defendant.

I think Smiths point there wasn't that there was some problem-meanness correlation, but that the justice system as it is structured doesn't even try to have a sensible metric by which to sentence by. I think framing it in terms of damage done to society is a reasonable one. Under such a metric, (unarmed) robbery should be treated with much less severity -- and daresay rehabilitative measures as opposed to just imprisonment -- than rape or murder. That seems reasonable, and not particularly evil as worldviews go.