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Title: Divided Supreme Court Sidesteps Challenge to Bush Administration Wartime Detention Powers
Source:
Associated Press
URL Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1799257
Published: Apr 3, 2006
Author: Associated Press
Post Date: 2006-04-03 11:22:50 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 50
Comments: 7
The Associated Press WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a man held until recently as an enemy combatant without traditional legal rights, in effect sidestepping a challenge to Bush administration wartime detention powers. Jose Padilla was moved in January to Miami to face criminal charges, and the government argued that the appeal over his indefinite detention was now pointless. Three justices said the court should have agreed to take up the case anyway: Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. An appeals court panel had all but called for the court to deal with the case, saying it was troubled by the Bush administration's change in legal strategy after holding Padilla more than three years without charges. Justices first considered in 2004 whether Padilla's constitutional rights were violated when he was detained as an "enemy combatant" without charges and access to a lawyer. Justices dodged a decision on technical grounds. In a dissent Justice John Paul Stevens said then that "at stake in this case is nothing less than the essence of a free society." Stevens and two other court members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, explained their Monday votes not to deal with Padilla's case. Although Padilla's claims "raise fundamental issues respecting the separation of powers, including consideration of the role and function of the courts, (the case) also counsels against addressing those claims when the course of legal proceedings has made them, at least for now, hypothetical," Kennedy wrote for the three. Justices are reviewing a second case arising from the government pursuit of terrorists, an appeal by a foreign terrorist suspect facing a military commission on war crimes charges at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Arguments were last week. Padilla's case was different. It asked the court to clarify how far the government can go when its hunt for terrorists leads to Americans in this country.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Ball-less wonders.
The "Dead Constitution" category is a most fitting classification for this article, indeed...
Yep. Exactly what "rights" do we still have? None, that I can think of.
Kennedy's concurrence, joined by Stevens and Chief Justice Roberts, warns the government that, if it tries to subject Padilla to enemy combatant treatment again, the Supreme Court will take up the matter.
Aren't civil rights inherently....hypothetical?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Not a problem, since under the "Patriot" Act, if you're not for 'em, you're with the terrorists. Since we were all declared enemies of the state in 1933, it should be obvious that this is what the scoundrels have been working towards for centuries: to cast us out from the land God has given us [Christians] to inherit. This is the whole point of all their machinations. Micah 4, Ezekiel 38-39, Psalm 2. See Title 50.
Ezekiel 37:1-10; Matthew 15:13.
#2. To: lodwick (#1)
#3. To: Brian S (#2)
#4. To: Brian S (#0)
#5. To: Brian S (#0)
(the case) also counsels against addressing those claims when the course of legal proceedings has made them, at least for now, hypothetical,"
#6. To: Brian S (#0)
Padilla's case was different. It asked the court to clarify how far the government can go when its hunt for terrorists leads to Americans in this country.
#7. To: Brian S (#2)
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