Top Court Rejects Gitmo Detainees' Appeal

Supreme Court Won't Decide Legal Rights Of Prisoners At Guantanamo Bay

(CBS/AP)  The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from Guantanamo detainees who want challenge their five-year-long confinement in court, a victory for the Bush administration's legal strategy in its fight against terrorism.

The victory may be only temporary, however. The high court twice previously has extended legal protections to prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. These individuals were seized as potential terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and only 10 have been charged with a crime.

Despite the earlier rulings, none of the roughly 385 detainees has yet had a hearing in a civilian court challenging his detention because the administration has moved aggressively to limit the legal rights of prisoners it has labeled as enemy combatants.

"This is a huge setback for the detainees and a big boost for the administration," says CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen, "because it allows, for now, the tribunal process to go forward down in Cuba".

But, Cohen cautions, "What the justices did today in refusing to hear the case doesn't mean they won't ultimately hear and decide it. In fact, they probably will, but after the detainees go through their trials at Gitmo."

A federal appeals court in Washington in February upheld a key provision of a law enacted last year that strips federal courts of their ability to hear such challenges.

At issue is whether prisoners held at Guantanamo have a right to habeas corpus review, a basic tenet of the Constitution that protects people from unlawful imprisonment.

The detainees' core argument is that no matter where they are held by American authorities, they are entitled to access to U.S. courts. They want the court to strike down the new law as unconstitutional.

Former military officers, diplomats and federal judges joined the detainees in urging the court to take prompt action. The court "held in no uncertain terms that the Guantanamo detainees were entitled to habeas corpus review to challenge the lawfulness of their detention," they said in their supporting brief. "But since that decision in June 2004, the court's mandate has been frustrated and not a single detainee has had a habeas hearing in federal court."

But the administration said that because of changes in the law since 2004 there was no need for the justices to hurry. Congress has authorized military hearings to assess whether the prisoners are being properly detained as enemy combatants. Those decisions can be appealed in a limited fashion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the same court that ruled in the administration's favor in February.

"There is no need for this court to assess the adequacy of the...review before it has taken place," Solicitor General Paul Clement, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote.

The court is likely to be faced with the same cases it rejected Monday once the appeals court begins conducting reviews.

Clement also argued that the appeals court was correct in holding that aliens outside the United States have no rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter voted to accept the appeals. "The questions presented are significant ones warranting our review," Breyer wrote. In addition, Breyer and Souter said they would have heard the case on a fast track, as the detainees requested.

And in a sign that the court has not had its final say on the matter, Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Paul Stevens made clear in a separate opinion that they were rejecting the appeals only on procedural grounds.

It takes four votes among the nine justices to accept a case.

Bipartisan proposals already have been introduced in the Democratic-led Congress to rewrite the 2006 law that swept away the detainees' access to U.S. courts. It was enacted by the then-GOP majority at the request of the White House.

The Supreme Court has twice thwarted the administration's efforts to keep the detainees out of the courts.

The Bush administration has reacted to each of the two previous rebuffs by undertaking remedial measures.

In 2004, the justices ruled that the courts can hear the detainees' cases, saying that prisoners under U.S. control have access to civilian courts, no matter where they are being held. remedial measures. "The courts of the United States have traditionally been open to nonresident aliens," Stevens wrote in Rasul V. Bush.

In 2006, the justices ruled that President Bush's plan for military war crimes trials, envisioned for a small number of Guantanamo Bay detainees, is illegal under U.S. and international law. The justices also said a law that Congress passed in 2005 to limit federal court lawsuits by Guantanamo detainees did not apply to pending cases.

After the Supreme Court ruling in 2004, the Pentagon set up panels that reviewed whether each of the detainees had been correctly categorized as an enemy combatant, and therefore not entitled to any legal rights.

After the justices' ruling in 2006, Congress at the urging of the White House enacted the law which blocked detainees from coming into U.S. courts and established new rules for the military trials.

[firststate]

pwrslm has introduced a bit of Bushshit reasoning by saying "US courts dont (sic) have proper jurisdiction to try non-citizens for crimes that did not occur in our borders . . . We could, literally, be within our rights to shoot them as spys" only in bushworld, bubba.

If we lack jurisdiction to try someone, we da^mned well lack it to impose sentence. The U.S. can't designate an individual in another country a spy in order to execute him. Only the country where he's operating can do that.

By such illogic, another country may execute a US citizen in the US as a spy against their interests. I think not. If legitimate, when huge rewards are offered US citizens who point offenders out, I could name several. I'd then take my bounty of several years' income and consider others to nominate at my leisure. That's the process we used in Afghanistan to collect many of Gitmo's guests.

Maybe dumbya's dreams of ruling the world led him to presume authority not his, but it's just one more thing he got wrong. His actions precisely followed those of which he accused Saddam of planning. He's attacked one country to date who didn't, and actually couldn't attack the U.S. He actually DOES have WMD's, no twisted intel here. His reasoning proves that regime change is necessary for the US.

[lars008-2009]

15 BRITS ALIVE OR IRAN DEAD!!!

1904: 'Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!'
http://www.capitalcentury.com/1904.html

[lars008-2009]

there is no peace with fascist nazi islam%u2026.. there never has been in it%u2019s 1400 year existence%u2026

dnc are like john adams and want to give the jihadist their lunch money hoping they will leave us alone....

gop are like thomas jefferson and want to spend their lunch money on weapons and go kick the jihadists in their arses.....

What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad

Thomas Jefferson knew about fascist nazi islam..... he killed plenty of them....

In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2007/691/
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2002_winter_spring/terrorism.htm

[pwrslm]

Under the (mis-named) Patriot Act the U.S. government has "extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over any Federal terrorism offense ... directed at U.S. security or interests" and further "(establishes) Federal jurisdiction over crimes committed at U.S. facilities abroad."
Posted by DefndLiberty

Dream on.

This doesnt touch combatants in a declaired war.

[pwrslm]

If these prisoners in Gitmo are accused of the crimes as the President claims, then submit them to the light of American justice.
Posted by DefndLiberty

No can do.

US courts dont have proper jurisdiction to try non-citizens for crimes that did not occur in our borders.

Thats why the Military keeps them.

Initially, they were called illegal combatants for the most part, because they were part of an organized AQ terror ring, and they were not assiciated with the military of any sovern nation.

Because of tree hugging right wingers, then are now formally considered as POW's, even though they technically were foreign insurgents, and not part of any formal military (as required by Geneva Convention).

We could, literally, be within our rights to shoot them as spys.

[grumpas]

It isn't surprising this Supreme Court voted the way they did! They all hold the same fascist principle's the current Republican Party holds! They have been hand picked to skew the law to a right wing idiology. Most of them voted to ignore Florida's voters and put who they choose into office! It's been a mess in this country since 2000! Until we weed the fascism that's taken over out of our government it's going to continue to be a mess!

[gkc99]

Is there any more spineless group than the U.S. Supreme Court? One expects Curious George Bushit and Neocondom to be fascists and promote their totalitarian views, but the Court is supposed to be the guardian of our liberties. These are the clowns who couldn't figure out that there was anything wrong with legally enforced race segregation until the late 1950s! *** near 100 years after the Civil War! Now their message is that Bushit and his Secret World Police can grab anybody, anywhere, and do anything they ****** well want to them. Ever wonder how Hitler came to power? Just watch the neocon Republicans and it's not too hard to figure out.

[gunnerv1]

THESE COLORS NEVER RUN (unless you're a liberal)

[gunnerv1]

Maybe they don't have high enough CO2 emissions for the Supreams to deal with. LOL

[grazinggoat]

But the obscenity here is not founded on this comparison. The obscenity that this administration has perpetrated is upon the foundation of the country- in the administration of fair justice. If these prisoners in Gitmo are accused of the crimes as the President claims, then submit them to the light of American justice. If they are guilty the punish them. But do not throw away the Constitution in the process. It is what makes our system shine.
Posted by DefndLiberty at 02:18 AM : Apr 03, 2007

-Thanks for the self-evident truth that most Americans feel about, but don't know how to word it. Finding the right word is a blessing.

-The right-wingers are cowards. They hide behind their walking-liar president, who is controlled by a lobby afraid of seeing the truth shining from anywhere in the world. The exchange of freedom principles between peoples and Nations is a devine gift and a devine obligation on every Liberty Seeker. This liberty quest is beyond their capacity of thinking, because they have been casted into servitude. America needs to be freed from this servitude casts. It needs more of you DefndLiberty.

-More of you, more of the freedom fighters such as Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Marx, Castro and the Chavez of this world, who fought to get the world rid of rigid CASTS, rigid unlawful, filthy laws and off injustice.