Mixed Results From the Supreme Court
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision not to decide the Jose Padilla case was, to my mind, a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the Court neatly avoided having to rule on the current regime's position that a President can detain a citizen without recourse to normal protections. On the other hand, the Court also made it clear that because of the canny procedural shift by the regime of moving Padilla from the 'military' prison to a civil prison, the Court will be keeping an eye on the case, expecting Mr. Padilla to appeal further if he is returned to the black hole of military detention.
The NY Times editorial on the subject doesn't quite see it that way.
The Supreme Court ducked its duty yesterday. It declined to review a notorious case testing President Bush's sweeping claim to have the power to seize American citizens on American soil and toss them into indefinite detention outside the normal legal process — simply by declaring them to be "enemy combatants."
The justices were asked to rule on the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was held for more than three years at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., supposedly on suspicion of being part of a plot by Al Qaeda to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States. No such case was ever presented against Mr. Padilla, and just before the issue of his detention could reach the Supreme Court, the government transferred him to a civilian prison. It filed criminal charges accusing him of the far lesser conventional crime of conspiring to send money overseas for violent purposes.
The intent of that move was clear: to avoid what appeared to be an inevitable showdown in the Supreme Court over Mr. Bush's imperial vision of executive authority. And it worked. Shifting Mr. Padilla to a civilian court rendered the issue of the president's detention powers "at least for now, hypothetical," according to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote a rare statement setting forth the court's reasoning for denying a hearing on a case.
...Fortunately, the court did not hand a total victory to the administration. Justice Kennedy made it clear that the case raises "fundamental issues respecting the separation of powers," and strongly signaled that the court would be ready to step in quickly if the government returned Mr. Padilla to military custody, or his basic rights were denied in his civilian trial. [Emphasis added]
In legal jargon, with the move of Mr. Padilla to a civilian prison and a switch to a civilian charge, the case had no justiciable issue, at least yet. The case wasn't ripe for a hearing because the issue of the presidential power's to detain in the fashion was no longer present. I suspect that is why Justice Stevens felt comfortable joining Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion. The decision was the correct one on this technical basis.
What I believe to be telling in the whole case is that the government made the move from military to civilian charges. I believe the government understood that the president simply does not have that power, no matter how arrogantly and boldly asserted. The government had to know that the Supreme Court would throw that stance right out the courtroom door. Mr. Padilla was, after all, a US citizen arrested on US soil.
In other words, there is a chink in that armor, and even the regime knows it.
The NY Times editorial on the subject doesn't quite see it that way.
The Supreme Court ducked its duty yesterday. It declined to review a notorious case testing President Bush's sweeping claim to have the power to seize American citizens on American soil and toss them into indefinite detention outside the normal legal process — simply by declaring them to be "enemy combatants."
The justices were asked to rule on the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was held for more than three years at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., supposedly on suspicion of being part of a plot by Al Qaeda to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States. No such case was ever presented against Mr. Padilla, and just before the issue of his detention could reach the Supreme Court, the government transferred him to a civilian prison. It filed criminal charges accusing him of the far lesser conventional crime of conspiring to send money overseas for violent purposes.
The intent of that move was clear: to avoid what appeared to be an inevitable showdown in the Supreme Court over Mr. Bush's imperial vision of executive authority. And it worked. Shifting Mr. Padilla to a civilian court rendered the issue of the president's detention powers "at least for now, hypothetical," according to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote a rare statement setting forth the court's reasoning for denying a hearing on a case.
...Fortunately, the court did not hand a total victory to the administration. Justice Kennedy made it clear that the case raises "fundamental issues respecting the separation of powers," and strongly signaled that the court would be ready to step in quickly if the government returned Mr. Padilla to military custody, or his basic rights were denied in his civilian trial. [Emphasis added]
In legal jargon, with the move of Mr. Padilla to a civilian prison and a switch to a civilian charge, the case had no justiciable issue, at least yet. The case wasn't ripe for a hearing because the issue of the presidential power's to detain in the fashion was no longer present. I suspect that is why Justice Stevens felt comfortable joining Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion. The decision was the correct one on this technical basis.
What I believe to be telling in the whole case is that the government made the move from military to civilian charges. I believe the government understood that the president simply does not have that power, no matter how arrogantly and boldly asserted. The government had to know that the Supreme Court would throw that stance right out the courtroom door. Mr. Padilla was, after all, a US citizen arrested on US soil.
In other words, there is a chink in that armor, and even the regime knows it.
posted by Diane at 4:01 AM
1 Comments:
I agree that the government knew that it would most likely lose at SCOTUS, but I still think they should have heard the case. While it is true that the issue technically became moot, they can still hear the case if it is an issue that is likely to be recurring. (Of course, that could always lead to bad precedent, so...)
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