California Conservative

Findlaw.com has this AP report:

In a victory for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the government can continue to hold indefinitely an American accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.”

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to reverse a judge’s order that the government either charge or free Jose Padilla, who has been in custody for more than three years.

“The exceedingly important question before us is whether the President of the United States possesses the authority to detain militarily a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al-Qaida, an entity with which the United States is at war,” Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote. “We conclude that the President does possess such authority.”

Other links of note:

1. You can read the opinion in Jose Padilla v. Commander C.T. Hanft, USN (District of South Carolina - Case No. 2:04-2221-26AJ and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Case No. 05-6396) here.
2. A Washington Post opinion piece suggests that Padilla be charged:
   

   “At every stage of this case and the other enemy-combatant cases, the government has overplayed its hand. And the courts have rightly grown suspicious.At this stage, there is no good reason to keep holding Mr. Padilla in a status that raises so many troubling questions and that risks so much. His intelligence value is exhausted, and he would be as disabled from rejoining the fight in a federal prison as in a military brig. Instead of trying its luck before the Supreme Court, the administration ought to seek congressional legislation to regulate such cases. In the immediate term, it should file criminal charges against Mr. Padilla, if it continues to insist he is a dangerous terrorist. Allowing Mr. Padilla a full opportunity to defend himself in a regular criminal proceeding would not only protect liberties, it would avoid another damaging setback for presidential war powers by the high court.”

3. TalkLeft calls the opinion “unprecedented and dangerous expansion of presidential power”
4. Laboratorium says “In some fluke of luck, a federal appeals court ruled in favor, yesterday, that the U.S. has the right to detain citizens without criminal charges.” [Ed. Note: that was not the scope of the decision at all, as a plain reading of the opinion will reveal].
5. Pacific Views says: “We now find out that it’s okay for the US government to lock someone up and throw away the key.”

[Cross-posted at The Southern California Law Blog]

UPDATE: (9/11)
September 11, 2001: In Memoriam

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2005 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Author: Jeff Lewis, Homeland Security, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.