Posted on 07/01/2006 6:25:01 PM PDT by neverdem
The Supreme Court killed a small forest yesterday with the 185 pages of conflicting opinions it issued yesterday in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, but it all boils down to only two points. First, the courts are ill equipped to deal with the legal complexities raised by the war on terror. And second, Congress can no longer avoid doing something about it. Although the ruling is a defeat for President Bush, it's certainly not a victory for his opponents.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a citizen of Yemen, was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, having spent the previous five years serving al Qaeda in various ways, including as Osama bin Laden's driver. Shipped to Guantanamo in June 2002, he was eventually hauled before a military commission established by Mr. Bush to try suspected terrorists. The main charge against him was conspiracy. By a 5-3 vote, the court has now ruled that Congress has not authorized the president to set up this sort of commission, which is neither civilian court nor traditional court martial. Chief Justice Roberts did not participate in the case because he had already ruled on it - in the president's favor - when he was riding the circuit in the District of Columbia.
The Hamdan Five concluded that the structure of the commissions, which deny defendants access to some classified evidence against them, was illegal under existing statutes and the Geneva Convention. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer also held that conspiracy is not a legitimate charge for a commission to consider under traditional military law; that finding would have become the law of the land if Justice Sandra Day Kennedy had signed on. Instead, he decided the conspiracy question wasn't germane in this case, nonetheless leaving the door open that he could change his mind in the future.
The...
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
...was illegal under existing statutes and the Geneva Convention. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer also held that conspiracy is not a legitimate charge for a commission to consider under traditional military law; that finding would have become the law of the land if Justice Sandra Day Kennedy had signed on. Instead, he decided the conspiracy question wasn't germane in this case, nonetheless leaving the door open that he could change his mind in the future.
Note to the five "Usual Suspects".....our Constitution is not a suicide pact.
"Sandra Day Kennedy?"
The conspirators tried for the Lincoln Assassination were all U.S. citizens. They were tried by military tribunal for conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. All were found guilty. Some were put to death, others were sentened to life in prison. Dr. Mudd's family tried for years to get his conviction overturned. They based their premise on the fact that Mudd had been a U.S. citizen residing in the State of Maryland, and that because that state had not seceded, Dr. Mudd should have been tried in a civil court and not a military court. They were never successful, and his military trial and conviction record stand.
In my eyes, the precendent for military trials has already been set with the trial of the Lincoln Conspirators. Why the Supreme Court believes that non-citizens who conspire against this country and her people can't be charged with conspiracy is beyond me. And, if citizens were previously tried by a military tribunal, and that trial's convictions were never overturned, then why can't enemy combatants who plot to assassinate Americans, also be tried by military tribunal.
Virginia has laws to the point ~ you conspire, you ride the gurney should someone die.
Hamdan's lucky "W" hasn't handed him over to the Virginia Attorney General.
Bingo. The military tribunals are essentially extra-constitutional, meaning the Constitution is essentially silent about WOT "combatants". The terrorists are neither law enforcement miscreants nor traditional uniformed soldiers. Western jurisprudence is simply not set up to see an enemy that is not either one of these.
I honestly can't say tribunals are the *right* recourse for the Gitmo prisoners but I don't see anything in the Constitution that forbids it. These aren't American citizens and they should not have the same level of legal protections that American citizens have.
Then again, since the government and the courts have a hard time recognizing that an illegal alien is not an American citizen, one can hardly blame for not recognizing that enemy terrorists rounded up on foreign soil are not either.
INTREP
"In my eyes, the precendent for military trials has already been set with the trial of the Lincoln Conspirators. "
Multiple precedents and the direct text of Congressional law pass just last year was ignored to create this dreadful ruling.
It was an awful mess. Check Cong Billybob's article on FR on it, very good.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.