Posted on 06/12/2008 4:43:33 PM PDT by Trueblackman
Washington, D.C. - Responding to today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene v. Bush that allows suspected terrorists to challenge their incarceration, Project 21's Kevin Martin is criticizing the Court, saying this decision puts national security at risk and sends a confusing signal to the military.
"As a Navy veteran who supported and defended our Constitution at home and abroad, today's Supreme Court ruling benefiting suspected terrorists is deeply disappointing," said Martin. "To grant suspected terrorists the same rights as those fighting to protect our nation is wrong. I consider this one of the most chilling legal rulings in my lifetime. Giving alleged foreign combatants the same rights as any American provides potential ammunition to those with political agendas running counter to the commander-in-chief. Our nation's enemies will now have the ability to gum up our federal courts with baseless legal challenges and further hinder the pursuit of justice."
In the razor-thin 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court decision allows suspected terrorists such as those currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba the right to challenge their incarceration in federal courts. It overturns a law passed in 2006 that limited judicial jurisdiction and affects 270 suspected terrorists currently being held by the U.S. military - including 14 suspects al Qaeda members.
Writing in dissent, and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the 2006 law struck down today was "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The Court rejects them today out of hand, without bothering to say what due process rights the detainees possess, without explaining how the statute fails to vindicate those rights, and before a single petitioner has even attempted to avail himself of the law's operation... One cannot help but think... think, after surveying the modest practical results of the majority's ambitious opinion, that this decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants."
In another scathing dissent, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito, Justice Scalia wrote that the majority decision "warps the Constitution" and that "[our] nation will live to regret what the Court has done today." Scalia further warned the ruling "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed... that consequence would be tolerable if necessary to preserve a time-honored legal principle vital to our constitutional Republic. But it is this Court's blatant abandonment of such a principle that produces the decision today." Scalia also noted that a practical affect of the decision will likely be harm to enemy combatants, as the decision is likely to result in enemy combatants being turned over to other nations by the United States following capture.
Martin added: "This sends a confounding message to our men and women in uniform, within our intelligence community and to our allies. Their hard-fought efforts to capture terrorist suspects maybe for naught because they could simply be released back on the battlefield on a legal technicality."
Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been a leading voice in the African-American community since 1992. For more information about Project 21 or the views of its members, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or project21@nationalcenter.org, or visit Project 21's website at www.project21.org/P21Index.html.
Not if they take no prisoners . . . then there’s no problem.
Apparently this nation doesn’t have the stomach for that, anymore.
” today’s Supreme Court ruling benefiting suspected terrorists is deeply disappointing..”
Correction -
today’s Supreme Court ruling benefiting suspected terrorists is proof that the court is infested with leftists.
That’s better.
A lot has changed since I've had Civics [there's a term for all you old timers] back in the late 50's.
How, or can we, remove these idiots from the bench?
The SCOTUS liberals once again prove their profound anti-americanism.
This nation’s lawyers want to sap the funds of the government by being involved in court cases they have never been involved in before.
A very scary situation occurring when you have a Scalia, a Roberts and an Alito. See the importance of having the GOP in power even if we can’t stand the one in power?
Supreme court judges rule for a lifetime and those rulings affect each and every one of us the rest of our lives.
McCain was just saying why he he was right when he voted for justices Ginsberg and Briar (sic) not one minute ago...
GEESH!
Hold your nose and vote for McCain. The Supreme Court is at stake and depends on keeping Nobama out.
McCain probably agrees with this revolting decision too.
Kevin, thanks for your words which accurately portray the disappointment of all of us who have served to protect and defend the Constitution.
Now more than ever we need to make sure that the Demoncrat party gets no where near the White House, lest they have the ability to re-stack the Supreme Court with activist anti-Constitution justices.
Stay strong my friend.
And yet some on here will use their vote to allow Obama to appoint justices for the next 4 to 8 years out of spite for McCain.
This is the consequence of losing elections. Expect much, much worse if Obama wins.
“Apparently this nation doesn’t have the stomach for that, anymore.”
I sure as hell wouldn’t take prisoners . . . can you imagine reading Miranda rights to some scumbag who’d rather cut your head off? I’d kill the bastard.
True. Your candidate doesn’t suck quite as bad as their candidate.
the prisoners should be left in the care of the 5 justices, and the ACLU. since they love them so.
More likely they simply won't be captured.
Secondly, there's no guarantee that the prisoners in Guantanamo will be released into the general U.S. prison population. They could be put in a special place of detention awaiting trial. North Dakota sounds good to me; lots of cold there. One step could be to place the Guantanamo prisoners in the hands of the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C., which will overload that court's calendar.
This doesn't directly affect the troops on the battlefield. They don't arrest, anyway; they detain. Federal law enforcement officials arrest and U.S. Attorneys file charges.
The only problem will be defense lawyers of the radical kind, who will try to spill classified information on ways, means, techniques, and sources to harm the U.S. government. However, they won't get their way in every court, and although Federal judges vary from the lenient to the severe, no Federal judge appreciates being make a clown. Few Judge Itos are on the Federal bench.
I am willing to work with this.
“And yet some on here will use their vote to allow Obama to appoint justices for the next 4 to 8 years out of spite for McCain.”
Yeah, where are all the loud-mouthed anti-McCain posters today?
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