[george wythe]

The judge assumed the government had a compelling reason to consider the suspect an extraordinary threat. Now Mr. Gonzales wanted the courts to forget the whole case.

I agree with Luttig here. Either Padilla was the 'dirty bomber' or not.

Now moving his case to federal courts to face different charges shows that the 'dirty bombing' charge was dubious.

The US citizens was deprived of his freedom for over 4 years without being charged with a crime.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Since when does a ruling by the judiciary that something "could" be done translate into a requirement that it "must" be done?

Since when do you take the word of reporters for reasons people act when they have not said so publically?

[oceanview]

no, it shows government could not try the dirty bomber charge with civilian court rules. we should have learned from the Moussaui sentencing case, that they were right.

you don't agree with Luttig. Luttig would have allowed a military tribunal - but his word wasn't the final one, and there was clearly 5 votes on the SCOTUS for Padilla (Scalia being one of them). The flip on the charges was simply a way for the government to avoid a landmark decision on enemy combatants from the SCOTUS (which we did anyway) - Luttig didn't want to help out, so he can take his a*s to Boeing now.