This is a huge decision and defeat for the Bush administration. M

Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2008

Supreme Court rules Guantanamo prisoners have right to sue in U.S. courts

Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 12, 2008 11:17:37 AM

Go to this link to read the entire article:
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 06/12/2008 | Supreme Court rules Guantanamo prisoners have right to sue in U.S. courts

WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their extended imprisonment in federal court, and struck down as inadequate an alternative review system set up by Congress.

Repudiating a key tenet of the Bush administration’s war-on-terror policy, the court’s 5-4 majority concluded the foreigners held in Guantanamo Bay retain the same habeas corpus rights as U.S. residents.

“Some of these petitioners have been in custody for the past six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “Their access to the writ is necessary to determine the lawfulness of their status, even if, in the end, they do not obtain the relief they seek.”

The court’s long-awaited ruling in the combined cases known as Boumediene v. Bush and Al-Odah v. United States is the latest in a string of judicial defeats for the Bush administration, which has sought to exclude foreign prisoners from traditional legal protections. The ruling also marks the first time in U.S. history that constitutional habeas corpus rights have been extended to alien fighters captured overseas.

The court’s conservative wing, including Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, at times with sharp words of their own.

“The nation will live to regret what the court has done today,” Scalia wrote.

Algerian native Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, Kuwaiti native Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah and the other detainees were seized abroad and have never been held on the U.S. mainland. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo Bay detainees had a right to habeas corpus under a statute passed by Congress. Congress responded with a 2005 law that stripped federal courts of their jurisdiction, thereby blocking further habeas petitions. The Supreme Court then ruled that the 2005 law didn't apply retroactively to Guantanamo Bay petitions that had already been filed.

Congress returned with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, blocking all Guantanamo Bay habeas corpus cases.

In Latin, habeas corpus means "produce the body.” A legal principle dating back centuries, it enables prisoners to demand in court the legal justification and factual basis for their detention.


The Bush administration contended the men don't enjoy habeas corpus rights because they're foreigners and not imprisoned on U.S. soil. The United States has leased the 45-square-mile Guantanamo Bay property from Cuba since 1903. The court’s majority didn’t buy the argument.

So, let's say we go to war against another nation and take prisoners: now we have to give those prisoners the rights of American citizens and let them stand trial in American courts? RIDICULOUS!

While the whole Guantanamo thing is wrong on a number of levels, this is another stupid decision by the idiots in robes up there on the Supreme Court.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

What? Why should foreign soldiers not get the same rights as American citizens?

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Because they're not American citizens! They should certainly have the protections granted under the Geneva Conventions but they should not be given access to American courts or otherwise be treated as if they're American citizens.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Agreed.


The "terrorists" at Gitmo should however pose a difficult problem to address. They're not POW's in the traditional sense, but by the same token are not subject to US law. The solution to this problem would be not to invade foreign countries without a declaration of war (hint, Constitution, hint).

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"Bring me that horizon".

We are talking about the letter of the law here. However, it is good to keep in mind that there was a Guantanamo case that previously went to the Supreme Court or a detainee that was simply Osama's taxi driver for a month. He was disallowed legal counsel unless he confessed first. He was then tortured. Testimony for that torture was entered as evidence at the GITMO court. The guy's JAG lawyer committed career suicide by appealing (and became one of my role model heroes). It went all the way to the Supreme Court and they upheld the rights of the detainee.

My point being, this is not exactly about the letter of the law, it is a grossly over abusive kangaroo court system outside of the normal US court system.

This court case started the Republican lawyers scheming at ways around the decision. So they made the GITMO court system justified under war powers with special legislation.

So many of these 'detainees' have been quietly let go because they realized they were either innocent, or not who they thought they were. The whole thing has made a mockery of what the US used to stand for.

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So, they are just as deserving of justice as anyone else and have the same rights as anyone else.

__________________
Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

The beginning of a return to sanity.

The difference between the attitudes of people on this thread seems to be that conservatives (generally) think the detainees are all guilty and the more liberals seem to feel that we should not presume guilt just because they were picked up by the military.

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