IT WOULD BE HELPFUL...:

Reneging on Justice at Guantánamo (NY Times, 11/20/11)

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo Bay prisoners who are not American citizens have the right of habeas corpus, allowing them to challenge the legality of their detention in federal court and seek release.

The power of the ruling, however, has been eviscerated by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appellate court's wrongheaded rulings and analyses, which have been followed by federal district judges, have reduced to zero the number of habeas petitions granted in the past year and a half.

The Supreme Court must reject this willful disregard of its decision in Boumediene v. Bush, and it can do so by reviewing the case of Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif, a Yemeni citizen imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay since 2002.

...if the Timesmen could explain by what stretch of the imagination habeas corpus could apply to someone who is not only not an American citizen but a captured enemy to boot.  The first proposition is dubious enough, but the second is explicitly repudiated by the Constitution: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Posted by oj at November 19, 2011 8:03 PM
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