Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Gitmo Detainees To Challenge Their Detention

by: Autumn Sandeen

Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 16:15:00 PM EDT

The ruling on Thursday focused in large part on the centuries old writ of habeas corpus ("you have the body," in Latin), a means by which prisoners can challenge their incarceration. Noting that the Constitution provides for suspension of the writ only in times of rebellion or invasion, Justice Kennedy called it "an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers."

In the years-long debate over the treatment of detainees, some critics of administration policy have asserted that those held at Guantánamo have fewer rights than people accused of crimes under American civilian and military law and that they are trapped in a sort of legal limbo.

Justice Kennedy wrote that the cases involving the detainees "lack any precise historical parallel. They involve individuals detained by executive order for the duration of a conflict that, if measure from September 11, 2001, to the present, is already among the longest wars in American history."

The Los Angeles Times reports in their article Supreme Court again says Guantanamo prisoners should have rights:

About 270 prisoners are now being held at Guantanamo. A small number of them, perhaps as many as 40, are likely to face trial. But today's decision concerned only detention, not the rules for trial.

With a 5-4 decision, one of course sees dissenting opinions. Again from the Los Angeles Times:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented and predicted the "ambitious opinion" will have "modest practical results."

"I believe the system the political branches constructed adequately protects any constitutional rights aliens captured abroad and detained as enemy combatants may enjoy," he wrote. "I therefore would dismiss these cases on that ground." Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined him in dissent.

The New York Times added:

Reflecting how the case divided the court not only on legal but, perhaps, emotional lines, Justice Scalia said that the United States was "at war with radical Islamists," and that the ruling "will almost certainly cause more Americans to get killed."

"The nation will live to regret what the court has done today," Justice Scalia said.

And Chief Justice Roberts said the majority had struck down "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants," and in doing so had left itself open to accusations of "judicial activism."

The chief justice said the majority had gutted the Detainee Treatment Act without really giving it a chance. "And to what effect?" he wrote. "The majority merely replaces a review system designed by the people's representatives with a set of shapeless procedures to be defined by federal courts at some future date."

I know I'll be checking with FindLaw Writ to see what Joanne Mariner and/or John Dean write about this ruling.

Civil rights related to government detention are just too important to our democracy to ignore, despite the dissenting beliefs of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia. In the near future, I expect to read FindLaw's Mariner and/or Dean explaining why allowing these prisoners to file habeas corpus challenges in federal court is so important.

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Related:
* Guantanamo Trials In Time For November Election Good For Republicans?

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