Supreme Court Supports Detainees Habeas Corpus Suits
WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court sent an urgent message to the White House Thursday, saying clearly that the Bush administration no longer controls the fate of the almost 300 prisoners held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In a 5-4 decision, the court essentially gave the nation’s federal courts supervisory authority over those detainees, holding that the inmates can have judges review the government’s rationale for keeping them locked up without charges. “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority.
For most of the prisoners, it will be the first time an independent body has probed into the circumstances of their extended detention. Lawyers for the prisoners believe many of them will be quickly freed and returned to their native countries or perhaps other places.
“A lot of these cases are just going to be gone,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the public interest law firm that represented a group of 37 detainees before the Supreme Court.
The opinion’s transfer of power to civilian courts enraged the justices who dissented from the opinion, as well as outside critics. “The court has conferred upon civilian judges the right to make military decisions,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.). “These judges have virtually no training in military matters. Yet civilian judges, in some of the most liberal district courts in the country, will have an opportunity to determine who is a threat to the United States.”
In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested the decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed” because, he said, it will lead to the release of hostile terrorists.
In a sense, the court told the administration that its time had run out. For more than four years, government lawyers have struggled to satisfy the court that some sort of process was in place in Guantanamo to separate those detainees who may pose a threat to the United States from those who were innocently caught up in the dragnet cast in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Thursday marked the third time the justices have rejected those efforts as being insufficient. And this time, there won’t be a chance for another shot. It was clear from the tenor of the decision that the justices’ patience had been exhausted. “Some of these petitioners have been in custody for six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention,” Kennedy wrote.
The bulk of the detainees remaining at Guantanamo _ about 260 _ will have their cases heard individually by U.S. District Court judges in Washington in what’s known as a habeas corpus proceeding. In these cases, the government will have the burden of showing why a prisoner should continue to be held without charges. “We think it’s unlikely in most of the cases the government will be able to do that,” Ratner said.
Compounding the problem will be that any evidence obtained through torture or coercion at Guantanamo is likely to be inadmissible in federal court. The inmate will also have the opportunity to offer exculpatory evidence.
The judge can then order his continued detention without a charge being filed against him; that the government charge the detainee or release him; or that he be released and transferred to another country. That judge will also have the authority to block a transfer of a prisoner by the Pentagon on the grounds that he may be re-incarcerated or tortured if shipped to his home country, and perhaps order him transferred to a different country.
The decision does not affect the small group of detainees who are now facing trials through the controversial military tribunal system at Guantanamo.
Some outside critics were supportive of the ruling. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University here, said that “the impact of this decision is enormous for the legal system. We have lost so much credibility internationally.”
Most of the habeas corpus actions have already been filed at the federal court in Washington and its chief judge, Royce Lamberth, said he would begin making preparations for the judges to hear the flood of politically sensitive and contentious cases. President George W. Bush, in Italy, said he did not agree with the decision, but that the government would abide by it while studying legislative options that could limit it.
Administration critics, such as Dalia Hashad of Amnesty International USA, still worry that the Pentagon will seek to get around the court’s mandate, perhaps by releasing detainees to be jailed in other countries before their cases can be reviewed. “The Bush administration has been so adamant about doing what they want, regardless of its legality, that despite today’s claim that Bush will respect the decision, I’m still concerned that he’ll find a way to do what he wants,” she said.
For many who have watched the conflict between the court and the executive branch unfold over the past six years, the decision came as no surprise. Turley called it “the defining moment of the Bush administration.”
John McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University, said that while he disagreed with the decision, the administration could have avoided the fight by simply cooperating with Congress to find an acceptable procedure years ago instead of going it alone.
And, he said, it was a matter of a weakened president no longer having the political muscle to fend off defeat. “It would have been much harder to strike this down when Bush was a popular president with substantial more time remaining in office,” McGinnis said, “than when he was an unpopular lamest of ducks.”
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