Posted on 06/11/2007 4:09:13 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Bush administration cannot use new anti-terrorism laws to keep U.S. residents locked up indefinitely without charging them, a divided federal appeals court said Monday.
The ruling was a harsh rebuke of one of the central tools the administration believes it has to combat terror.
"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the constitution—and the country," the court panel said.
In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court. It ruled the government must allow al-Marri to be released from military detention.
The government intends to ask the full 4th Circuit to hear the case, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
the fourth CIRCUS court of appeals.
I’d agree with this ruling if the guy was a natural born US citizen. However, if he immigrated here then obtained his citizenship, then off to perpetual summer camp at Gitmo with his arse.
I think US Citizens should have the rights afforded them under the US Constitution.
If this terrorist/traitor gets out, send him to live with the anti-American Judges and Lawyers.
This decision— which is correct in my view— has nothing to do with the detainess at Gitmo, who are all aliens who were seized on the battlefield overseas. The court’s ruling is limited to (a) civilians, who are (b) citizens or legal residents of the U.S., and (c) are seized within the 50 states. The court ruled that the Government could detain al-Marri temporarily, but he had to be held by civilian, not military, authorities, and that the Government would have to eventually either (1) charge him with a crime in civilan court, or (2) deport him, or (3) release him.
but this guy isn’t a citizen, is he?
What about John Walker Lindh? Wasn’t he tried in a military court though an American citizen?
Googling ,...found this:
***************************EXCERPT*******************************
The Initial Interview Of Al-Marri
12. In connection with the investigation into the SeptemberÊ11 Attacks, on or about October 2, 2001, another FBI agent and I interviewed ALI SALEH KAHLAH AL-MARRI, a/k/a "Abdullakareem A. Almuslam," the defendant, at his apartment in Peoria, Illinois. During the interview, AL-MARRI stated, among other things, that he is a Qatari national and that he had been in the United States since September 10, 2001. AL-MARRI also stated that he possessed a student visa issued by the United States and that he was studying for a master's degree in computer information systems at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.
13. During the October 2, 2001 interview, I asked AL-MARRI when he had previously traveled to the United States. AL-MARRI responded that, prior to his arrival in the United States on September 10, 2001, he had last been in the United States from approximately 1983 to 1991, when he obtained a bachelor of science degree from Bradley University.
Nope, he was tried in a civilian court.
See post #9.....
so clearly the courts want to set guidelines that terrorist or traitorous acts should be tried in a civilian court, if the person is a resident or American citizen.
*********************************************
4. On December 12, 2001, AL-MARRI was arrested as a material witness in connection with the investigation of the September 11 Attacks. AL-MARRI was subsequently indicted by a grand jury sitting in this District for the unauthorized possession of 15 or more access devices -- credit card numbers -- with the intent to defraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029(a)(3). That case, 02 Cr. 147 (VM), is currently pending before the Honorable Victor Marrero, and trial is set for January 13, 2003.
This Guy was sent here on a Mission....read the Court Document....
Before this war is over, I think we are going to have to see a few of these so-called judges classified as enemy combatants.
I agree with the following exception:
If a citizen of the United States is caught on the battlefield, he is immediately classified as an enemy combatant.
If a citizen of the United States is caught on US soil, a civilian court may determine if he can be classified as an enemy combatant.
************************************ EXCERPT*********************************************
The Fourth Circuit panel majority ruled that Congress has not taken away the legal right of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to challenge his detention, thus limiting the reach of the Military Commissions Act's court-stripping provisions. "As an alien captured and detained within the United States," the Court said, "he has a right to habeas corpus protected by the Constitution's Suspension Clause." The Court said, though, that it was avoiding "difficult constitutional questions" about the MCA's court-stripping provision, finding that it could interpret the MCA to stay clear of those issues. It found that the MCA withdraws habeas only for those properly detained as enemy combatants, and it ruled that al-Marri's detention did not meet that test because of the lack of presidential authority.
The panel concluded that it would grant al-Marri habeas relief, though not immediate release. It said the government had accused him -- though not with formal charges -- of "grave crimes." The case was returned to a federal judge in South Carolina with instructions to order the Pentagon to release al-Marri from military custody "within a reasonable period of time to be set by the District Court. The Government can transfer al-Marri to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings against him, hold him as a material witness in connection with grand jury proceedings, or detain him for a limited time pursuant to the Patriot Act. But military detention of al-Marri must cease."
Al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar, was arrested -- the Circuit Court said legally -- by civilian authorities ini Peoria, Ill., in December 2001; he was there to work on a master's degree at Bradley University. Later, in 2003, he was declared an enemy combatant, and transferred to the U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., from which he challenged his detention. He lost in a U.S. District Court, in a decision overturned on appeal Monday.
The key part of the ruling on presidential powers declared: "Even assuming the truth of the government's allegations [against al-Marri], the President lacks the power to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain al-Marri....[W]e have found no authority for holding that the evidence offered by the Government affords a basis for treating al-Marri as an enemy combatant, or as anything other than a civilian....The President's constitutional powers do not allow him to order the military to seize and detain indefinitely al-Marri without criminal process any more than they permit the President to order the military to seize and detain, without criminal process, other terrorists within the United States, like the Unabomber or the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing."
"In light of al-Marri's due process rights under our Constitution and Congress's express prohibition in the Patriot Act on the indefinite detention of those civilians arrested as 'terrorist aliens' within this country," the majority said, "we can only conclude that in the case at hand, the President claims a power that far exceeds that granted him by the Constitution."
In an opinion written by Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, the Court said: "We do not question the President's war-time authority over enemy combatants; but absent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus or declaration of martial law, the Constitution simply does not provide the President with the power to exercise military authority over civilians within the United States."
The opinion was joined by Circuit Judge Roger Gregory. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, sitting on the Circuit Court by special appointment, dissented. The majority issued a 77-page decision. Judge Hudson, in his nine-page dissent, argued that the President had authority under Article II and underethe 9/11 Resolution. Judge Hudson, however, agreed with the majority that the federal courts retain authority under the Constitution to hear habeas challenges by civilians detained by the military in the U.S.
The Circuit Court's ruling on jurisdiction interpreted what Congress had done about federal courts' authority in last year's Military Commissions Act. It concluded that Congress had set up a two-step process that the Government must meet before habeas is cut off. To remove jurisdiction over a detainee's habeas challenge, it said, there must first be an initial decision to detain; then, there must be a subsequent official decision by the government that the initial decision was "proper."
Under MCA, Judge Motz wrote, President Bush's order to the military to detain al-Marri was the first step -- an initial decision to detain. But, it concluded, there has been no second step. Under the law, she said, enemy combatant status must either be determined by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal -- the military administrative panels set up by the Pentagon -- or by some other "Executive tribunal." Neither has made such a ruling as to al-Marri, the decision said. (The CSRT panels are operating only for foreign nationals being held at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.) The President's designation of al-Marri does not satisfy both steps, the Court ruled.
The panel majority rejected a government argument that it could satisfy the second step by giving al-Marri a review by a CSRT. But the Court said Congress' authorization of the CSRT process does not apply to civilians captured and held within the U.S. "Congress sought to eliminate the statutory grant of habeas jurisdiction for those aliens captured and held outside the United States who could not lay claim to constitutional protections, but to preserve the rights of aliens like al-Marri, lawfully residing within the country with substantial, voluntary connections to the United States, for whom Congress recognized the Constitution protected the writ of habeas corpus."
Charge em, try em , fry em!
News....
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