Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
June 13, 2008
Pg. 14
Our view
Court sends powerful message, upholds rights for detainees.
In baseball, the rule is three strikes and you're out. On Thursday, the Supreme Court called that third strike against the Bush administration and Congress over the system they devised for holding enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Twice before, the court has rejected the administration's attempts to bar foreigners at Guantanamo from challenging their detentions in regular civilian courts. Thursday's 5-4 decision made it plain that right cannot be suspended, even for those suspected of terrorism. Now it's time for the White House and Congress to accept that call and move on, rather than continue trying to craft new ways to get around the umpire — and the Constitution.
The ruling opens the door to federal courts for about 270 prisoners whose indefinite, years-long detentions have given the nation a black eye throughout much of the world. The gut reaction of many Americans may be that the prisoners are getting better treatment than they deserve. In some cases, perhaps they are. But the ruling also sends a powerful message about U.S. justice.
For all the hoopla over the court's rebuke of administration policies, the ruling simply upheld America's long tradition, known as the right to habeas corpus, that anyone in confinement can go before an impartial judge to challenge that confinement. Several hundred detainees — held at Guantanamo for years with no charges — have been released after findings that there was no evidence to hold them. There might well be more undiscovered errors.
The latest ruling doesn't mean anyone is about to get out of jail free. Detainees will now get a chance to challenge their detentions before federal judges accustomed to presiding over criminal trials, judges who were nominated by presidents and confirmed by the Senate. The cases will almost surely land at a federal appellate court considered one of the most politically conservative in the nation. And the military commission trials of the men, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who's charged with 9/11-related crimes, will likely go forward after some delay.
So the angst expressed by critics of the ruling is misplaced.
The landmark decision came in a case brought by lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian who emigrated to Bosnia in the 1990s. After 9/11, Bosnian police picked up him and five others when American authorities charged that they had been plotting to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. When a three-month probe found no evidence to support the charges, Bosnia's top court set them free. At U.S. insistence, they were scooped up again and locked up in Cuba.
Are they innocent victims? Vicious terrorists? Somewhere in between? It's unclear. Yet they've sat at Guantanamo for six years, facing the equivalent of a life sentence for the duration of the war on terror. Now, a federal court will get the chance to sort out the facts and evaluate whether there is evidence to hold them. That seems just.
It's true that the Supreme Court has now given detainees more due process than they would get just about anywhere in the world. That's what makes the United States different, a place where law survives and thrives, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, even "in extraordinary times."
June 13, 2008
Pg. 14
Our view
Court sends powerful message, upholds rights for detainees.
In baseball, the rule is three strikes and you're out. On Thursday, the Supreme Court called that third strike against the Bush administration and Congress over the system they devised for holding enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Twice before, the court has rejected the administration's attempts to bar foreigners at Guantanamo from challenging their detentions in regular civilian courts. Thursday's 5-4 decision made it plain that right cannot be suspended, even for those suspected of terrorism. Now it's time for the White House and Congress to accept that call and move on, rather than continue trying to craft new ways to get around the umpire — and the Constitution.
The ruling opens the door to federal courts for about 270 prisoners whose indefinite, years-long detentions have given the nation a black eye throughout much of the world. The gut reaction of many Americans may be that the prisoners are getting better treatment than they deserve. In some cases, perhaps they are. But the ruling also sends a powerful message about U.S. justice.
For all the hoopla over the court's rebuke of administration policies, the ruling simply upheld America's long tradition, known as the right to habeas corpus, that anyone in confinement can go before an impartial judge to challenge that confinement. Several hundred detainees — held at Guantanamo for years with no charges — have been released after findings that there was no evidence to hold them. There might well be more undiscovered errors.
The latest ruling doesn't mean anyone is about to get out of jail free. Detainees will now get a chance to challenge their detentions before federal judges accustomed to presiding over criminal trials, judges who were nominated by presidents and confirmed by the Senate. The cases will almost surely land at a federal appellate court considered one of the most politically conservative in the nation. And the military commission trials of the men, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who's charged with 9/11-related crimes, will likely go forward after some delay.
So the angst expressed by critics of the ruling is misplaced.
The landmark decision came in a case brought by lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian who emigrated to Bosnia in the 1990s. After 9/11, Bosnian police picked up him and five others when American authorities charged that they had been plotting to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. When a three-month probe found no evidence to support the charges, Bosnia's top court set them free. At U.S. insistence, they were scooped up again and locked up in Cuba.
Are they innocent victims? Vicious terrorists? Somewhere in between? It's unclear. Yet they've sat at Guantanamo for six years, facing the equivalent of a life sentence for the duration of the war on terror. Now, a federal court will get the chance to sort out the facts and evaluate whether there is evidence to hold them. That seems just.
It's true that the Supreme Court has now given detainees more due process than they would get just about anywhere in the world. That's what makes the United States different, a place where law survives and thrives, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, even "in extraordinary times."