California Conservative

The Supreme Court handed the Bush administration a major victory in the fight against global jihadists with this decision:

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from Guantanamo detainees who want challenge their five-year-long confinement in court, a victory for the Bush administration’s legal strategy in its fight against terrorism.

Of course, the AP had to throw a damp rag onto the article:

The victory may be only temporary, however. The high court twice previously has extended legal protections to prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. These individuals were seized as potential terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and only 10 have been charged with a crime.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that: (a) the administration couldn’t create military tribunals on its own and (b) that the legislature had to create these tribunals, which it did. The opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld didn’t mandate trials. A prior ruling gave prisoners the right to counsel. The Geneva Convention, which the US is a signatory to, gives nations the right to hold POW’s without trial.

It’s also worth noting that the prior rulings that “extended legal protections to prisoners” was one of the final rulings of the Rehnquist/Sandra Day O’Connor court. The Roberts Court gets these things right.

A federal appeals court in Washington in February upheld a key provision of a law enacted last year that strips federal courts of their ability to hear such challenges.

The court that the AP is referencing is the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, often referred to as the second most powerful court in the land behind only the US Supreme Court. The DC Circuit’s rulings aren’t often overturned. I don’t have the statistics in front of me but I’m betting that they’re the least overturned court in the land.

Technorati Tags: Gitmo, Enemy Combatants, Hamdan, Military Tribunals, DC Circuit, Supreme Court, Media Bias

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 9:25 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Intel, Judiciary, Media, Military, Terrorism, W. 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.