Supreme Court Blocks Guantanamo Bay War-Crimes Trials (SCOTUS rules against President)

Fox News & AP ^ | June 29, 2006

[pabianice]

Breaking...

---

Update:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for Usama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo...

Excerpt. Read more at: Fox News

[Christian4Bush]

It will retread ... count on it.

I know...trolls are as they do...reminds me of the verse "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."

[Jameison]

"World opinion disagrees friend."

Ahhhh.
Ze World Court cometh.
"World opinion" like those denizens of human rights that rule in Labia, Iran, Cuba, China, North Korea, Egypt etc?
Is this the same "world" where most of the countries, regularly torture and kill people who's only crime is to disagree with their governments?

Listen, no country on this planet even comes close to the United States when it comes to upholding human right of it's citizens.
I should know, having lived in quite a few countries, in different parts of the world.

[xsmommy]

yes lil jamie brightened our days. i feel certain he will listen to mark levin's radio show this evening, per my suggestion... LMAO!

[La Enchiladita]

Yeah, it wasn't given very many talking points.

Other than "DUH!"

[MissEdie]

You need to send this to those stinking justices, they have either already forgotten or don't care what happens to us.

[Jameison]

"oh he tried to be stealthy. i think the mods wanted to just let him play himself out, bc they all do that eventually"

Moonbats can always be relied on to self-destruct sooner or later.
They will hang themselves when given enough rope.
Just think the Paul Wellstone "funeral".
Their BDS usually makes them unhinged and causes them to foam at the mouth and act stupid.
Which is a very good thing too. :)

[xsmommy]

i will admit he had me swooning when he stamped his foot and said, i'm sorry guys, but i am a legal studies major and... ; )

[RogerWilko]

I'll bet he RUNS back to DUmmieLand now and brags that he ran circles around the Freepers so they banned him!

That's the usual routine for them! They get their A**es handed to them and they THINK they WON!! All they have to do is look at how many times they thought they were winning, but ended up LOSING!! They'll NEVER learn!

That's what they get for "thinking"!

[Christian4Bush]

yes lil jamie brightened our days. i feel certain he will listen to mark levin's radio show this evening, per my suggestion... LMAO!

Listen? Hell's bells, he'll probably try to call in to everyone's show today, just like one of those dope smoking, maggot infested, great unwashed, free to be you and me hug a tree types did last week...called Laura, Rush, Hannity, Medved, Elder, and got run every time.

[TexKat]

Salim Ahmed Hamdan is seen in this undated file photo. The former driver for Osama bin Laden may help decide the fate of dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and perhaps all of them, as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on his legal challenge to the first American war-crimes trials since World War II. The court, which is expected to rule as early as Monday, June 26, 2006, is considering a range of issues in detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan's case, including whether President George W. Bush had the authority to order military trials for men who were captured in the war on terror and sent to Guantanamo Bay Naval base in Cuba. (AP Photo/photo courtesy of Prof. Neal Katyal)

Supreme Court blocks Bush, Gitmo war trials

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a strong rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of about 450 men still being held at Guantanamo and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.

It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.

US President George W. Bush (R) and First Lady Laura Bush arrive in Vienna. Bush will pledge to respect human rights in his war on terror, according to the draft of a final statement prepared for an EU-US summit, amid complaints from the Europeans about US treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.(AFP/Dieter Nagl)

Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim that he had authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.

The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.

Thursday's ruling overturned that decision.

The administration had hinted in recent weeks that it was prepared for the court to set back its plans for trying Guantanamo detainees.

The president also has told reporters, "I'd like to close Guantanamo." But he added, "I also recognize that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous."

The court's ruling says nothing about whether the prison should be shut down, dealing only with plans to put detainees on trial.

"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Kennedy wrote in his separate opinion. "Concentration of power (in the executive branch) puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, erected in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, has been a flash point for international criticism. Hundreds of people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban — including some teenagers — have been swept up by the U.S. military and secretly shipped there since 2002.

Three detainees committed suicide there this month, using sheets and clothing to hang themselves. The deaths brought new scrutiny and criticism of the prison, along with fresh calls for its closing.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent and took the unusual step of reading part of it from the bench — something he had never done before in his 15 years. He said the court's decision would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

The court's willingness, Thomas wrote in the dissent, "to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

In his own separate opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said, "Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check.'"

"Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary," Breyer wrote.

The court's ruling was a resounding loss for the Bush administration. Justices also rejected the administration's claim that the case should be thrown out on grounds that a new law stripped their authority to consider it.

"It's certainly a nail in the coffin for the idea that the president can set up these trials," said Barbara Olshansky, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents about 300 Guantanamo detainees.

Hamdan claims the military commissions established by the Pentagon on Bush's orders are flawed because they violate basic military justice protections.

Hamdan says he is innocent and worked as a driver for bin Laden in Afghanistan only to eke out a living for his family.

The case is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184.

[lepton]

Why did the U.S. Supreme Court approve of Dred Scott's making of blacks 3/5ths' of a person.

Wow! That's an astounding display of "No clue whatsoever of what you are talking about". Astounding especially for someone who claims SOME training in law, but even for one who doesn't.

You'll find that generally I'm pretty even-keeled and dispationate in my posts, so take this in accordance:

Grow up. Learn to read. Read what you are commenting on. When you make references, at least be familiar with them. Realize that things have a context and learn about that context.

You've shown that you have so little clue of what you are talking about that it would take perhaps years to teach you. I'm done for now.

[La Enchiladita]

Time to quit taking prisoners!

The only way to fly.

[Elpasser]

WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF PLEASE PICK UP THE LOBBY PHONE.

SEND A BILL TO CONGRESS -- NOW -- LEGITIMIZING THE MILITARY TRIBUNALS AND WATCH THE DEMS RUN FOR COVER. THEY MUST EITHER VOTE FOR IT, OR WHINE FOR THE RIGHTS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DRIVER.

A PERFECT STORM. THANKS JOHN PAUL STEVENS.

[freedumb2003]

BBQ Troll -- the other white meat!

[xsmommy]

but we are worthy of much better opponents than the pansies that we get here, like jamie. really, they insult us with the low caliber troll. i challenge them to put up a GOOD one, one that we can actually work over for a good long time. these piddling ones are so unfulfilling. you just get into it and POOF they are gone.

[Auntie Dem]

I'm coming late to this thread, and don't have time to read all 700+ posts so let me ask these three questions:

1. Isn't the Geneva Convention a Treaty?

2. Isn't ONLY the Senate constitutionally empowered to agree to treaties?

3. Why does the SC think they have consitutional authority to usurp the function of the Senate?

IOW, the SC's ruling is unconstitutional, No? The SC is not the most powerful of the three branches. The SC is acting if they are MORE powerful than the Executive and the Legislative--not co-equal.

Wasn't it Andrew Jackson that was ordered by the SC to do a certain thing, and his response was "I have Justice So-and-So's ruling, now let's see him make me do it."

Would to God that George Bush had that kind of spine.

[PghBaldy]

Scalia's Dissent mentions the fact Congress stripped the courts of the very power they think they still have: Detainee Treatment Act of 2005: (1) IN GENERAL- Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: `(e) Except as provided in section 1005 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider-- `(1) an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; or `(2) any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention by the Department of Defense of an alien at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who-- `(A) is currently in military custody; or `(B) has been determined by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in accordance with the procedures set forth in section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant.'.

[Christian4Bush]

BBQ Troll -- the other white meat!

Darn you!!!! I'm in my cubicle at a very quiet company, trying like crazy not to hysterically LOL!!!!! You win the post of the thread!

[freedumb2003]

He's Banta Doo now.

[La Enchiladita]

I wouldn't be surprised if UC Berkeley or UCLA.