Stuart Couch

Stuart Couch is an American lawyer, officer and pilot in the United States Marine Corps, immigration judge, and adjunct professor of military law at the Charlotte School of Law.

Couch had a friend, from his Marine Corps service, Michael Horrocks, who was a co-pilot of one of the jets hijacked on September 11, 2001. Couch is reported to have returned to service, following the attacks, so he could "get a crack at the guys who attacked the United States." Couch was assigned to serve as one of the prosecutors of Mohamedou Ould Slahi in his case before a military commission at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In 2003, Couch withdrew from Slahi's prosecution team because he believed he was asked to use evidence obtained through means of coercive interrogation that violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, U.S. laws, and the United States' treaty obligations. He said he believed that Slahi was guilty but felt that evidence derived from torture was inadmissible in court.

On July 19, 2007, The Globe and Mail quoted an email from Couch: "I would not characterize my decision re: Slahi as 'comfortable' but in retrospect would still make the same career decision," His resignation received national media coverage, including a long article in 2007 in the Wall Street Journal. It said that he had argued with Robert L. Swann, the Chief Prosecutor.

On February 26, 2009, the Virginia Law Weekly also profiled Couch. In a lecture, Couch said: "In the fall of 2003, something caused Slahi to start singing like Beyonce." Couch was later to learn that Slahi had been put under "special projects" interrogation plan authorized by the Office of the Legal Counsel in consultation with the CIA, in which specific enhanced interrogation techniques, often considered torture, were used.

Following Couch's August 2019 promotion to the Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals, a body that holds final decision-making power on deportations, several news outlets including Mother Jones and Newsweek reported how Couch was once the subject of a 2016 formal complaint filed with the Justice Department. The complaint detailed how Couch threatened a two-year-old child in immigration court with a dog attack if he did not behave. The affidavit stated that when the boy failed to obey Couch's command, he yelled “I have a very big dog in my office, and if you don't be quiet, he will come out and bite you!”

Any time the boy made noise Couch continued to threaten the toddler with a dog as the Spanish translator interpreted the threats. An observer in the court room noted that whenever threats were made, the judge would turn off the recording device. The judge later suggested that he had a practice of threatening children with "scary animals". It is unclear whether any disciplinary actions were taken. Couch was appointed to the BIA in August 2019.

Couch was scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on November 8, 2007. An e-mail from the Department of Defense's General Counsel, William J. Haynes, II, informed him on November 7, 2007: "... as a sitting judge and former prosecutor, it is improper for you to testify about matters still pending in the military court system, and you are not to appear before the committee to testify tomorrow."

Congressional Representative Jerrold Nadler criticized the Bush Presidency for stonewalling by withholding Couch's testimony.