Enemy Combatants Win Right to U.S. Courts

[bowens43]

By Anne Gearan
| Associated Press Writer
|
| Published: Jun 28, 2004 12:36 PM EST
|
| WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court dealt a setback to the Bush
| administration's war against terrorism Monday, ruling that both
| U.S. citizens and foreign nationals seized as potential terrorists
| can challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.
|
| The court refused to endorse a central claim of the White House
| since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001: That the government
| has authority to seize and detain suspected terrorists or their
| protectors and indefinitely deny access to courts or lawyers while
| interrogating them.

http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/news/ap/4/scotus_enemy_combatants?sessionID=3281615b7015bdc9aa9c0a8047d6c01d>

[Junkdrawer]

1. I'll believe Bush lost when the detainee trials begin...

and when we hear from their attorneys. Otherwise, I'll assume that this "Bush Lost" talk is all for domestic and international human rights consumption and that actually Bush got what he wants - the right to detain anyone indefinitely without a meaningful trial.

[bowens43]

2. Guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.... n/t

[geek tragedy]

3. Bush lost big time

Five Justices--Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg and Scalia (!!!) have said today that the government can't detain US citizens in the United States as enemy combatants.

Scalia was vicious in his criticism of Rehnquist and Thomas.

There are at least five votes that say that what Bush tried with Padilla was flat out unconstitutional.

[Junkdrawer]

5. Well, as they say, I'm from Missouri - Show Me...

Let's see the quality of these "trials"...

[pdmike]

4. What Does "Treatment" Mean?

What does "treatment" mean?

Does it mean the illegal detention itself, or only how they are being treated during the illegal detention, without getting to the issue of whether or not the detention itself is illegal?

Makes a HUGH difference.

If it is the former, it means the detainees can be released with charges dismissed if they can prove they are being illegally detained. If it is the latter, all it means is that if they aren't getting proper food, health care, etc., they can complain about that to the courts while they continue to be held indefinitely without trial.

pdmike

[geek tragedy]

6. It means the legality of the detention itself

Says so right in the opinion.

[baby_bear]

7. Here's the NYTimes' take and my attempt to summarize

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/politics/28CND-SCOT.html?hp

<snip>
The Supreme Court ruled today that people being held by the United States as enemy combatants can challenge their detention in American courts — the court's most important statement in decades on the balance between personal liberties and national security.

The justices declared their findings in three rulings, two of them involving American citizens and the other addressing the status of foreigners being held at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Taken together, they were a significant setback for the Bush administration's approach to the campaign against terrorism that began on Sept. 11, 2001.
...
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the campaign against terrorism notwithstanding, "a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."
...

</snip>

So, in summary:

1st case: 8 to 1, Thomas dissenting. The majority wrote: "Due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker."

2d case: In the Guantánamo case, the court ruled, 6 to 3, that federal courts have the jurisdiction to consider challenges to the custody of foreigners. The finding repudiated a central argument of the administration.
The dissenters were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

3d case: José Padilla, the court ruled on what at first glance was a technical issue: that Mr. Padilla filed his habeas corpus petition in the wrong court. A 5-to-4 majority said he should have filed in federal court in South Carolina, since he has been held in a brig in Charleston, rather than in the Southern District of New York.
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the opinion, joined by Justices O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy. Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer dissented.

Excellent.

s_m

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Downloading the actual decisions

and reading them, it is like Gore vs Bush, you need
to read them... over coffee.

But from the press coverage, the Bushistas lost big time,
and the rule of law won...

[damnraddem]

8. What an inaccurate description:

"dealt a setback to the Bush administration's war against terrorism." Dealt a setback to the Bushistas; dealt a setback to the fake 'war on Terra.' But that, though accurate, shouldn't be led with, rather something like 'the SCOTUS upheld basic rights.'

[pmbryant]

10. Excellent news

Scary to see how close we came to having basic constitutional rights stripped away, though.

:scared:

But, in the end, this looks like very good news.

:-)

EDIT: The decision in the Padilla case is baffling to me, however. :shrug:

Peter

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. It is a technical decision

It will take refiling and that is the end of it...

The court split hairs, but that is part of their job... it is not a
bad thing really as Padilla will also be guaranteed Habeas Corpus.

Ah the USSC recognized the primacy of law over the bushista interests

12. looks like good news to me and these people

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20040628/ts_nm/security_court_dc

"Today's historic rulings are a strong repudiation of the administration's argument that its actions in the war on terrorism are beyond the rule of law and unreviewable by American courts," Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) said.


Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the Guantanamo case, said, "This is a major victory for the rule of law and affirms the right of every person, citizen or noncitizen, detained by the United States to test the legality of his or her detention in a U.S. court."

[Leilani]

13. Seems to me they said:

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Boy King has been told that alas, there are indeed limits to his power.

Hopefully in Nov. the American people will take their country back!