Posted on 06/28/2004 8:21:16 AM PDT by Thud
This is the thread for a legal oriented discussion of Rasul v. Bush, which may be the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case. The link is to an Adobe Acrobat reader version of the ruling's text. I'm a lawyer and will analyze this opinion, and its implications, later today after studying it more carefully.
Care to partake?
We should try and see what Mark Levin thinks about this.
I'd really like to see your thinking on this.
Here's a link to the decision:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/28june20041215/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/03-334.pdf
While the WH did not get everything it wanted, the government is still allowed to detain, but the detainees can contest the detention or their treatment.
My gut reaction is that if the statute is silent then the courts are doing us a great disservice by extending the habeas corpus privileges to non-citizens.
Maybe I can find the decision on Westlaw (I've become spoiled by the direct links to statues and cases cited)
Can you'all please address the issue of whether it makes a difference WHERE the terrorists are captured? Seems to me that it ought to make an enormous difference whether they were arrested here in the U.S. or captured on a foreign battlefield. Thanks.
You're assuming everyone held at Gitmo is guilty.
Based on the fairly large number released, that's unlikely.
Basically, Rasul v. Bush is more about where the people are held following capture, rather than where they are actually captured.
And the USSC - based on a prior ruling - has ruled that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear aliens habeas corpus claims when those aliens are being held in territory that the U.S. has control over (like Gitmo).
I trust the military to make battlefield decisions, not liberal judges.
Scalia's dissent soves a rod up the liberals' a$$holes.
He always does.
Here is the important part:
"STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which OCONNOR, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and THOMAS, J., joined."
The three most conservative judges were against it. The five most liberal judges were for it. Anytime the split is that clear, I tend to believe that it was a bad decision.
Well, the court distinguished Eisentrager and noted that in this case, none of the detainees were citizens or nationals of a country with which we were at war and also the court relied upon the fact that the US has exclusive control over Guantanamo pursuant to the lease and treaty with Cuba.
The Court rejected respondent's claim that the detainees lacked litigation privileges, noting that historically nonresident aliens have had such privileges in US courts.
In short, the Court distinguished it's earlier reasoning in Eisentrager in order to reach this decision. What always fascinates me about the Court is its easy way with stare decisis. Those footprints in concrete are never very permanent...
to the contrary, the few which are released are typically found again, back on the battlefield.
Scary. It is sometimes no more than an intellectual exercise; how can the court get the result it wants and still have the veneer of jurisprudence.
It's an obnoxious decision. It drips with guile by stating that the detainees are not members of a country with which we are at war. By that logic, if we capture Bin Laden we will have to hold all sorts of hearings about the legality of his detention and his treatment.
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