US Supreme Court Blocks Gitmo War Trials
Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 02:50PM The Supreme Court ruled today that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering war trials for terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Fox News reports that a huge question in this case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, et al, was whether the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration argued that these detainees were not prisoners of war and therefore, not eligible for treatment under the Geneva agreement.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy joining Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Stevens in the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia voted in the minority.
Meanwhile, both the ACLU and lawyers for Gimto inmates are "very pleased" with the ruling. Word has it, so is Osama bin Laden, who is equally as pleased as the ACLU that the Senate voted against a ban on burning the American flag.
Read the entire Supreme Court ruling HERE
Dissenting from the ruling were justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Chief Justice Roberts did not vote. Some dissenting remarks are:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 05–184
SALIM AHMED HAMDAN, PETITIONER v. DONALD
H. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
[June 29, 2006]
SCALIA, J. :
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.
On December 30, 2005, Congress enacted the DetaineeTreatment Act (DTA). It unambiguously provides that, asof that date, “no court, justice, or judge” shall have juris-diction to consider the habeas application of a Guan-tanamo Bay detainee. Notwithstanding this plain directive, the Court today concludes that, on what it calls thestatute’s most natural reading, every “court, justice, or judge” before whom such a habeas application was pending on December 30 has jurisdiction to hear, consider, and render judgment on it. This conclusion is patently erroneous. And even if it were not, the jurisdiction supposedly retained should, in an exercise of sound equitable discretion, not be exercised.
An ancient and unbroken line of authority attests that statutes ousting jurisdiction unambiguously apply to cases pending at their effective date.
THOMAS:
The Civil War experience provides further support for the President’s conclusion that conspiracy to violate the laws of war is an offense cognizable before law-of-war military commissions. Indeed, in the highest profile case to be tried before a military commission relating to that war, namely, the trial of the men involved in the assassi-nation of President Lincoln, the charge provided that those men had “combin[ed], confederat[ed], and conspir[ed] . . . to kill and murder” President Lincoln. G. C. M. O. No. 356 (1865), reprinted in H. R. Doc. No. 314, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., 696 (1899) (hereinafter G. C. M. O. No. 356). 12
Today a plurality of this Court would hold that conspir acy to massacre innocent civilians does not violate the laws of war. This determination is unsustainable. The judgment of the political branches that Hamdan, and others like him, must be held accountable before military commissions for their involvement with and membership in an unlawful organization dedicated to inflicting massive civilian casualties is supported by virtually every relevant authority, including all of the authorities invoked by the plurality today. It is also supported by the nature of the present conflict. We are not engaged in a traditional battle with a nation-state, but with a worldwide, hydra-headed enemy, who lurks in the shadows conspiring to reproduce the atrocities of September 11, 2001, and who has boasted of sending suicide bombers into civilian gatherings, has proudly distributed videotapes of beheadings of civilian workers, and has tortured and dismembered captured American soldiers. But according to the plurality, when our Armed Forces capture those who are plotting terrorist atrocities like the bombing of the Khobar Towers, the bombing of the U. S. S. Cole, and the attacks of September 11—even if their plots are advanced to the very brink of fulfillment—our military cannot charge those criminals with any offense against the laws of war. Instead, our troops must catch the terrorists “red-handed,” ante, at 48, in the midst of the attack itself, in order to bring them to justice. Not only is this conclusion fundamentally inconsistent with the cardinal principal of the law of war, namely protecting non-combatants, but it would sorely hamper the President’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.
The President’s findings about the nature of the present conflict with respect to members of al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan represents a core exercise of his commander-in-chief authority that this Court is bound to respect.
ALITO:
Whatever else may be said about the sys-tem that was created by Military Commission Order No. 1and augmented by the Detainee Treatment Act, §1005(e)(1), 119 Stat. 2742, this system—which features formal trial procedures, multiple levels of administrative review, and the opportunity for review by a United States Court of Appeals and by this Court—does not dispense “summary justice.”
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Reader Comments (13)
Every war-time president has had war-tribunal powers. This is insane. Stand by for waves of spin from the MSM on what a great victory this is for human rights!
Typical liberal approach to 'justice': all the pity for the criminals, none for the victims, and never a thought about what havoc these losers will wreak on humanity now that they are free...
From reading the court case itself and the remarks by the justices, it seems that this case shouldn't have even been tried by the Court. 1) al-Qaeda are non-combatants and until they don a uniform and abide by the Geneva convention themselves, its a moot point. 2) The President has the legal power to deal with enemy non-combatants in this way. 3) The Court dismissed an early law by Congress supporting the President's power to do this. I'll try to get the specifics later.
America is totally unique. In what other country do enemies not covered by the Geneva convention get A/Ced room and board, free prayer mats on which to pray for the strength to kill us and our children, and the Supreme Court moving powers and laws to make it happen. Only in America.
The fact is that Gitmo has likely helped provide leads for the war on terror and, in any case, can't really be held to the standards of the Geneva Convention. Honestly, I think it's something we need to keep.
Where will that leave the rest of us who care about our constitution, our country and our children?
I can with all honesty say, and God forgive me, but I truly despise the ACLU and everything they stand for. They are systematically destroying our country and have no qualms about doing it. And what is worse they are being allowed to do it.