LANSING, MI - A conservative legal advocacy group is running a statewide TV ad criticizing Michigan Supreme Court candidate Bridget McCormack for volunteering to represent terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The ad - which cost at least $1 million and began airing a week before the election - features Teri Joseph of Flint, whose son, Joseph, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

"My son is a hero and fought to protect us," Joseph says in the ad. "Bridget McCormack volunteered to help free a terrorist. How could you?"

McCormack is a law professor at the University of Michigan and a Democratic nominee running for one of three spots on the Supreme Court.

In 2007, the Michigan Daily - the school's student newspaper - identified McCormack as having represented Wahldof Abdul Mokit since 2005 after being assigned his case by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based legal group that has coordinated efforts by American lawyers to represent Guantanamo detainees.

Mokit, who goes by several other names including Abdumuqit Vohidov, was caught in Afghanistan in 2001 and eventually was transferred to Guantanamo. After being transferred to his home country of Tajikistan in 2007, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for joining fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The ad is being paid for by the Judicial Crisis Network, a Washington, D.C.-based legal organization that works to ensure conservatives are elected to or appointed to state and federal judgeships. The group's funding sources are not disclosed on its website.

"This last-minute mud-slinging by a special interest group outside of Michigan confirms what Bridget Mary McCormack has been saying about what's wrong with judicial campaigns. The fact is, Bridget never represented a terrorist. She is the daughter of a Marine running to protect families and children," said Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for the McCormack campaign.

McCormack is dean of clinical affairs at the law school. This is not the first ad to mention McCormack's Guantanamo ties.

The Michigan Republican Party noted them in an ad that also targeted other Democratic nominees to the high court.

"This is an enemy combatant that was detained for one specific reason - trying to injure, harm or destroy American property or American people, the lives of Americans," former Republican state Rep. Andrew "Rocky" Raczkowski, who served two tours in Operation Enduring Freedom, said Tuesday while unveiling the new ad with Judicial Crisis Network spokesman Stu Sandler in Lansing.

"There was enough evidence that was brought forth to detain this individual. I do not agree, like a majority of Americans and Michiganders, that these individuals should have civil trials."

In a June 2005 op-ed in the Detroit News, McCormack argued that the Guantanamo detention camp should be dismantled not only because of the damage done to the U.S.'s reputation around the world but also because it represented the country's failure to apply its basic values.

"The urge to cut constitutional corners when fighting an evil enemy is understandable. But it is a visceral urge, and we should resist it," she wrote. "Abandoning the rule of law betrays our most fundamental commitments, our noble side. America has fought and won its most important battles without abandoning the values that most define it, including most especially due process and the rule of law."

Email David Eggert at deggert1@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter @DavidEggert00