Supreme Court Sides With Gitmo Detainees

Bush Unhappy With 5-4 Ruling That Foreign Terror Suspects Can Challenge Detention

(CBS/ AP)  In a stinging rebuke to President Bush's anti-terror policies, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges.

Mr. Bush said he strongly disagreed with the decision - the third time the court has repudiated him on the detainees - and suggested he might seek yet another law to keep terror suspects locked up at the prison camp, even as his presidency winds down.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 high court majority, acknowledged the terrorism threat the U.S. faces - the administration's justification for the detentions - but he declared, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Mr. Bush has argued the detentions are needed to protect the nation in a time of unprecedented threats from al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups. The president, in Rome, said Thursday, "It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented." He said he would consider whether to seek new laws in light of the ruling "so we can safely say to the American people, 'We're doing everything we can to protect you.'"

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., called the ruling a "dangerous decision" because in the middle of a war, military officers could be dragged into federal court, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

"Never in the history or warfare have we allowed enemy prisoners to go to a federal court and sue our own troops to be released," Graham told Andrews.

Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but he also said such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances. The ruling itself won't result in any immediate releases.

The decision also cast doubt on the future of the military war crimes trials that 19 detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters, are facing so far. The Pentagon has said it plans to try as many as 80 men held at Guantanamo.

Lawyers for detainees differed over whether the ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for those who have not been charged. Roughly 270 men remain at the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Most are classed as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

"The lesson here, and it's a costly one for the administration, is that it can't try the terror suspects through Guantanamo Bay without creating procedures that the Supreme Court signs off upon - rules that give the men more rights than the White House has wanted to now for nearly seven years," CBS News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen says.

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Andrew Cohen weighs in on the Supreme Court's ruling on detainees.

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Some detainee lawyers said hearings could take place within a few months. But James Cohen, a Fordham University law professor who has two clients at Guantanamo, predicted Mr. Bush would continue seeking ways to resist the ruling. "Nothing is going to happen between June 12 and Jan. 20," when the next president takes office, Cohen said.

Roughly 200 detainees have lawsuits on hold in federal court in Washington. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would call a special meeting of federal judges to address how to handle the cases.

Detainees already facing trial are in a different category.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said Thursday's decision should not affect war crimes trials. "Military commission trials will therefore continue to go forward," Carr said.

The lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's one-time driver, said he will seek dismissal of the charges against Hamdan based on the new ruling. A military judge had already delayed the trial's start to await the high court ruling.

It was unclear whether a hearing at Guantanamo for Canadian Omar Khadr, charged with killing a U.S. Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, would go forward next week as planned.

Charles Swift, the former Navy lawyer who used to represent Hamdan, said he believes the court removed any legal basis for keeping the Guantanamo facility open and that the military tribunals are "doomed."

Guantanamo generally and the tribunals were conceived on the idea that "constitutional protections wouldn't apply," Swift said. "The court said the Constitution applies. They're in big trouble."

Human rights groups and many Democratic members of Congress celebrated the ruling as affirming the nation's commitment to the rule of law. Several Republican lawmakers called it a decision that put foreign terrorists' rights above the safety of the American people.

The administration opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants, people suspected of ties to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The prison has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and the aggressive interrogations that were conducted there.

At its heart, the 70-page ruling says that the detainees have the same rights as anyone else in custody in the United States to contest their detention before a judge. Kennedy also said the system the administration has put in place to classify detainees as enemy combatants and review those decisions is not an adequate substitute for the right to go before a civilian judge.

The administration had argued first that the detainees have no rights. But it also contended that the classification and review process was sufficient.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his own dissent to Thursday's ruling, criticized the majority for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas also dissented.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens - the court's more liberal members - joined Kennedy to form the majority.

Souter wrote a separate opinion in which he emphasized the length of the detentions.

"A second fact insufficiently appreciated by the dissents is the length of the disputed imprisonments; some of the prisoners represented here today having been locked up for six years," Souter said. "Hence the hollow ring when the dissenters suggest that the court is somehow precipitating the judiciary into reviewing claims that the military ... could handle within some reasonable period of time."

Scalia, citing a report by Senate Republicans, said at least 30 prisoners have returned to the battlefield following their release from Guantanamo.

The court has ruled twice previously that people held at Guantanamo without charges can go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. Each time, the administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.

The court specifically struck down a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denies Guantanamo detainees the right to file petitions of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is a centuries-old legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.

The head of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of prisoners at Guantanamo, welcomed the ruling.

"The Supreme Court has finally brought an end to one of our nation's most egregious injustices," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. "By granting the writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court recognizes a rule of law established hundreds of years ago and essential to American jurisprudence since our nation's founding."

Mr. Bush has said he wants to close the facility once countries can be found to take the prisoners who are there.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama also support shutting down the prison.

[terrorislami]

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. John Adams

[terrorislami]

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein

%u201CAdmittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender.%u201D (President Reagan, 1964. Rendezvous with Destiny)

[terrorislami]

USA''''s PLEDGE 2 THE WORLD GIVEN BY JFK!!

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

"Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."-- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961

One ought never to turn one''''s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Winston Churchill

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke

[terrorislami]

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. ~D.H. Lawrence, Classical American Literature, 1922

[impeach_w]

Taking no prisoners is an order that is a war crime.

Bush and Cheney are the ones trying to destory or constitution, The same one they took an oath to protect.

Please check this link, you may not agree with him but he spells out some very good points.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2008/06/12/opinion/courtwatch/main417729
6.shtml

Check this link please:

[notblue]

The irony of this ruling is we are now protecting the evil that wants to wipe out these privilages and rights, only can the leftwing loons see justification in such idiotic irony, protection for the barbarians who would destroy the very system that is now protecting them.

[terrorislami]

TAKE NO PRISONERS,,,

we have defeated fascist nazi terrorislam before,,,

after america became a country,,, fascist nazi terrorislam demanded that america pay protection money or they would attack americas ships and enslave all on board,,,

thomas jefferson and james madison was having non of that,,, and they sent americas military to kick fascist nazi terrorislams arses in barbary war one and barbary war two,,, why two wars,,, fascist nazi terrorislamists break treaties,,, sound familiar??? can you say iraq,,,

It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none. President James Madison

[impeach_w]

This Guy says it best.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/12/opinion/courtwatch/main4177296.shtml

The ruling was as predictable as it was avoidable. For the fourth time the Supreme Court has forcefully said %u201Cnot good enough%u201D to the White House and Congress when asked whether the other two branches had created rules sufficient to fully and fairly treat those now held at Guantanamo... when you employ legal shortcuts, and when those trimmings undercut the rights of men, the courts will send you back to the drawing board... The dissenting expressed concern that an already chaotic situation - has just become more so. But no one ever said that the Constitution guarantees neat and tidy results. And the blame for the chaos of the past seven years and the chaos yet to come does not rest, as Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. suggested in his dissent, with his five colleagues in the Court%u2019s majority. It rests with the White House and the Congress. Both the MCA and the Detainee Treatment Act - were cobbled together in response to earlier Supreme Court decisions; both were shoved through Congress. In law, as in life, you reap what you sow. The White House sowed this ruling for years, long after the Court itself made clear, over and over again, that this is what the feds would reap. Now, who is to blame for that - and for this ruling?

[terrorislami]

THE NATION WILL LIVE TO REGRET WHAT THE COURT HAS DONE TODAY,,,

VOTE DEMONIC-RAT AT YOUR PERIL,,,

DEMONIC-RAT UN-SUPREME COURT JUDGES TRASH THE CONSTITUTION,,,

Scalia asserted that the decision will have dire consequences. He warned that some detainees will be freed and return to war against America: "The nation will live to regret what the court has done today."

Supreme Court maintains post-9/11 course on Gitmo
The Supreme Court''s 5-4 decision Thursday declaring for the first time that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to a hearing in U.S. courts is a milestone. It also reinforces a familiar court pattern in the post-9/11 world of insisting on judicial review of detainee cases.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2008-06-12-court-pattern_N.htm

[joe1022joe]

Because this Supreme Court decision by liberal judges puts Americans in danger (Obama likes this decision), it will help John McCain in November.

[apprxam]

It''s funny how the RepubliCons don''t mind dragging anyone else into court. And as for the "middle of a war", Linsay, I''m sure you''ll get them back to the front as soon as technologically possible, because you and McBush and Liberman care not for those guys families, careers, businesses and their lives and well being.

Christian values and our tax dollars perfect together; working for America.

[komoncents]

Our brave soldiers, as well as the Bush led sheeple, are being deluded by an administration which is the very definition of pure evil. The soldiers die defending not our freedom, but a sinister plot resulting in the single largest transfer of wealth the world has ever known - all thanks to Bush.

If you believe one word Bush spews forth like toxic waste then you are apparently not ready to be "unplugged." You probably even refuse to believe your own eyes when you witness the twin-towers falling at the rate of gravity in an obvious controlled demolition. And have you found the missing airplane wreckage from the supposed pentagon attack yet? It%u2019s big %u2013 about the size of a football field %u2013 you can%u2019t miss it !

But finally the highest court in the land steps up and reaffirms what the rest of us knew all along %u2013 Bush and cronies have been, and still are, criminals in violation of humanity. Let the war crime trials for genocide commence!

[brianbwb-2009]

"And soon they will have to learn even more words, like "war crimes trials" and "crimes against humanity" and "treason against The United States of America". ST

We must do all we can to make it happen, put all the pressure on our politicians to start the process.

We must keep up the call even after Bush and his gang leave office. If they are allowed to get away scot free with their crimes, then we signal to any future American despots that they can commit crimes against humanity, and if they make enough money from it, we will say and do nothing.

That will signal to the world that America is nothing more than a gangster''s paradise, and will surely encourage others to do likewise, it will be the end of the rule of law.

[komoncents]

"In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Such irresponsible fear mongering by a judge sworn to uphold and interpret the constitution. Thx for the fortune telling propaganda Judge Scumalia. Sounds like a page right out of the WMD handbook for deceiving the masses.

Course its not really clairvoyance - if the Bush/Cheney/Saudia crime syndicate have their way we''ll be attacked again before the next election to give McCain more lies, ammunition, and fear to swill to his heart''s content.

More dead americans judge? You can surely count on it and thank Bush for it! And how about almost a million dead Iraqi and Afghan men, woman, and children senselessly slaughtered in our name.

Impeach all the neoconazis who voted against our rights and the letter of the law of the constitution.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., called the ruling a "dangerous decision" because in the middle of a war, military officers could be dragged into federal court, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews."

If they are breaking the law, and the terms of the Geneva Convention during the war, then they should be stopped, and immediately made to face due process for the violations.

The constitution cannot be allowed to be abrogated because of a war, especially since we have been known to engage in wars based on the lies of those who profit from it.

We must make absolutely sure that war is the defense of last resort, instead of a tool of US and international corporate gangsters. The day has come that this tool has been turned upon Americans, we must make sure it never happens again.

[taddles3]

"National Security in times of war trumps loud mouths interpretations of the constitution. Especially if they ain''''t even got the courage of their convictions.

Posted by cockapoo11 at 12:55 AM : Jun 13, 2008":


No it doesn''t and that''s what the Supreme Court is saying, even in times of war, the President is not above the law or the Constitution, ever.

[taddles3]

"I didn''''t see anybody stop''''n them before we committed to a war.

Posted by cockapoo11 at 12:52 AM : Jun 13, 2008"


Who would stop them, the congress and Whitehouse and supreme court were all Republican run, and everyone had been filled with the lies of the imminenet nuclear attack from Iraq.

[taddles3]

"In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."


Interesting activist rhetoric from a justice who claims to be a strict constructionist and who "abhors activist judges"

[cockapoo11]

National Security in times of war trumps loud mouths interpretations of the constitution. Especially if they ain''t even got the courage of their convictions.

[apprxam]

Actually, CP, I''m diggin your point, tonight only.

+ I''m no f-ing liberal.