Monday editorial: Who won? ‘We the people’
By a bare 5 to 4 majority last week, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed what should have been obvious:
• No president is above the law, especially when it comes to depriving people of their liberty.
• No prisoner may be denied the minimum protection of the law, regardless of his citizenship or how dangerous the government claims he is.
People imprisoned by the United States have a right to challenge the legal basis for their detention before a neutral magistrate. They must get due process: a real chance to know the evidence against them and confront their accusers. The government must justify a person’s detention or set him free.
This is the purpose of the writ of habeas corpus — the “Great Writ,” as it is called.
These rights are what the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last week in Boumediene v. Bush, a case involving prisoners held at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, many for more than six years.
No legal principle is more important to a free people. None should be more deeply cherished. And it is this principle that the Supreme Court majority reaffirmed last week.
Does this mean that the people declared to be “unlawful enemy combatants” by President George W. Bush suddenly will be released? No. It means that they must get a fair chance to challenge in federal civilian courts the legal basis for their detention.
The Constitution provides that the Great Writ may “be suspended . . . when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” But the Court ruled that that was not the case in Boumediene.
Consider what the Bush administration — sometimes with the assistance of a Republican majority in Congress — has tried to do to deny the constitutional right of the Great Writ:
• Mr. Bush claimed — initially without action by Congress — that as commander in chief, he had the right to imprison anyone he classified as an enemy combatant, even U.S. citizens, and hold them indefinitely without filing charges against them, without allowing them to seek legal counsel and without any right to challenge their detention.
• The Bush administration also argued that prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military installation were outside the United States and, therefore, not entitled to any constitutional protections.
• After earlier Supreme Court decisions knocked down these arguments, Congress became involved and pushed through legislation stripping the federal courts of the authority to rule on habeas corpus claims by Guantanamo prisoners. Last week’s ruling invalidated that move.
• Left standing were other legislative provisions establishing military commissions to try suspects at Guantanamo, proceedings that a growing number of military and civilian lawyers and judges have begun criticizing as the equivalent of kangaroo courts.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. filed a lengthy dissent to the majority decision in Boumediene that is petulant in tone and full of lawyerly quibbles. It contends that as a result of this decision, everyone loses — including the American people.
In fact, everyone wins — at least, everyone who believes in a constitutional system that limits the power of government to imprison people and empowers the judiciary to enforce those limits.
Mr. Roth… What is the PD’s position on reparations for the tens of thousands of German soldiers held on US soil from 1942-1945 without habeas corpus rights? Also, will there be any investigative reporting of the number of public defenders and costs of litigation resulting from this 5-4 decision that is so great for the American People? Would the PD participate in creating a fund for the families and children of Americans killed by terrorists released as a result of this decision?
Jihadis caught on the field of battle, fighting against the accepted rules of war (in uniform, not hiding among civilians, not using civilians as bombs, not beheading captives on tv) our protected by our Constitution? How freakin stupid are these 5 idiots? Commanders in the field will now have to worry what the Anti Christian Lawyers Union will say about how Johny Jihad was captured, disgraceful.
1. Where our troops, embassies, etc. go, so goes the “Flag”, hence, certain constitutional presuppositions — ie habeas corpus.
2. Just because others behave savagely is not an excuse for us to behave as savages.
3. Appropo the german detainees here during WWII, they were classified as POW’s and theoretically at least we had to abide by certain agreed upon conventions of warfare. More germane to this discussion is the detention of thousands of Japanese Americans in “relocation camps” whose rights to habeas corpus weere usurped. This was later ruled unconstitutional, however, during the war the Supreme Court allowed it under the war powers. Bush & company like this parallel.
4. Those who run around shouting “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”, need to be reminded the USA is not a Royalist Republican State with “good king George” as its’ head. Freedom and democracy survive through practice and exercise, as well as active defense by our armed forces. Far too many are willing to cede their rights for “security”, especially if it seems only those who “threaten us” are being affected.
Unfortunately many (including 5/9 of the Supreme Court) are completely confused on the difference in “ceding our rights” and granting the hard won and oft defended constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents to our enemies and the world at large. It will be interesting to carefully compare the reaction of the PD and some of these bloggers when the SCOTUS decision on the 2nd Amendment rights of Washington DC residents.
There’s a much better review of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision than the one by the Post-Dispatch. See “Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts” by gadsdentimes.com, dated 6/13/08. It points out just how much more needs to be decided before we can allow hearings in civilian courts. What is not questioned is whether the detainees would be allowed trial by jury. God help us if this happens. One loose cannon on a jury could release a trained, vicious, and radical murderer, sworn to kill all infidels. Each of us, including the P-D editors, are “infidels”.
Where would we release them, back to their countries of origin, that may simply refuse them? Maybe onto the streets of America, just long enough to disappear into the crowd, or go to the local water works to poison us? There’s no security on our Chain of Rocks and Howard Bend water plants. Are a couple of lab attendants and pipefitters supposed to protect us?
George W. Bush has accepted the Supreme Court decision, with strong reservations (probably including some of mine above). Both John McCain and Barack Obama, for different reasons and based on a lot of difference in practical experience, agree that Gitmo should be closed. So be it, but beware the consequences. We are letting the fox into the henhouse.
>>>”1. Where our troops, embassies, etc. go, so goes the “Flag”, hence, certain constitutional presuppositions — ie habeas corpus.”<<<
Presuppositions, my eye. That’s exactly the kind of manufactured precedent that makes SCOTUS a political organization when that is precisely what it is NOT supposed to be.
The bottom line is that the government cannot proceed against some of these unlawful combatants without revealing their intelligence sources and intelligence gathering techniques.
SCOTUS is demanding that the U.S. lay bare its techniques and strategy for the enemy to learn from. They’ve already figured out that they can evade much of the blowback from their military actions by dressing in civilian clothes and never formally organizing into an army.
They are NOT entitled to Habeas Corpus, and they are NOT entitled to Geneva Convention protections. They ARE entitled to a bullet in the head as soon as they are found.
And who will doubt that that will be the evntual outcome of this nonsense?
Too much controversy over how to handle prisoners?
THEN DON’T TAKE ANY!
Good grief, people, do you remeber how a prisoner by the name of NICK BERG was treated?!?
Before anyone questions my take on security at the City of St. Louis water plants, I have spent time at both over the years, as a technical salesman and as an on-site project consultant. At one time, the people at Chain of Rocks expressed concern because of a proposed BICYCLE PATH through the property. How stupid are we?
How stupid are we? May I suggest you re-read the editorial above for your answer?
CTC-
All embassies of every country are considered part of that country’s sovreign territory, hence things like “diplomatic immunity”, etc. This is not new and has been around for a long time.
I will take this as assurance from the PD and the SCOTUS that no more American soldiers will be tortured or mutalated That’s good news.