Supreme Court Blocks Guantanamo Bay War-Crimes Trials (SCOTUS rules against President)

Fox News & AP ^ | June 29, 2006

[pabianice]

Breaking...

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Update:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion, which said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a body guard and driver for Usama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo...

Excerpt. Read more at: Fox News

[COEXERJ145]

Jackson basically dared the Supreme Court to come after him.

[Postman]

Souter jogs around DC in the evening. A mugger almost retired him a while ago but he survived to again rule for the enemy..

[dotnetfellow]

> He had to. It was his decision they were ruling on.

So? Why couldn't he rule on his own decision? He's the Chief Justice for petes sake.

I see the dim rat libs have managed to put one over on the pubbies once again visa vie the courts.

[JFC]

Congress!!!

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

It wasn't the SC I was talking about, but the Democrat party and how they will spin this case.

[lepton]

The suspension of rights is a distinct act on Congress' part... it doesn't automatically attach to any warfighting.

It depends upon which ones we are referring to. Some laws provisions are engaged upon a declaration of war. Then there's that whole habeus corpus thing that the President may do.

[IMRight]

> He had to. It was his decision they were ruling on.

So? Why couldn't he rule on his own decision? He's the Chief Justice for petes sake.

Judicial ethics forbid it. It's a clear conflict of interest.

[Ron in Acreage]

He should immediately put them on a plane and put them in an Iraqi prison. I,m sure the new Iraqi govt. would give them all kinds of "constitutional" rights.

[mware]

This is going to make for a very sticky wicket with the Democrats.

Lindsey Gramm has already been on Fox saying he is presenting a bill before Congress that will allow Military Tribunals for terrorist.

Lets see them go before the American people and tell them these terrorists are entitled to the same rights as American Citizens. After all isn't it them who are harping about the President of Iraq and his plan to grant amnesty for people who were attacked our troops.

[syriacus]

Tempus fugit.

Some "precedent setting" SC Rulings of the past are in the middle of the garbage heap of history now.

The folks who were on the bench at the time look like idiots.

[NinoFan]

In hindsight, not having Roberts on this case was really bad. If you've noticed, ever since Roberts and Alito joined the Court, the Court has been issuing some originalist rulings. I think that has been a result of the combination of the pressure of having two, new bright conservatives AND having CJ Roberts constantly stroking Kennedy's ego. Thanks to Roberts's recusal, we didn't have that. I think that very well could have made the difference.

[Praxeus]

After reading my post, I wish I had not palced the quotations around "insight". It conveys derision that I did not intend.

Sorry, no offense meant!

[Jameison]

"This ruling, along with eminent domain, will be the nail in their coffins this November as well as in 2008."

That's exactly what I have been saying all along.
I was already fairly certain we were going to win in November, after Zaqrqawi was blown to kingdom come, President Bush's visit to Iraq, Karl Rove excellent non prosecution, our win in the Cali 50th District, etc.
But then along comes a moonbat, anti-American ruling from BJ Klinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginzburg & co., and I am thinking, we are surely going to win in November.
Last thing most Americans want is another Ruth Bader Ginzburg to give comfort and succor to Al Quaeda vermin.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

SCOTUS should have applied foreign law and standards.

The Koran says to kill your enemies "where you find them".

[syriacus]

If not for the Left's insistence for due process for the prisoners, the review boards initially used probably would've stuck.

I agree.

[jamiefoxer]

I didn't say I support Al-Qaeda and infer we deserved 9/11? Were did you read that? I said that I thought SCOTUS was correct in ruling the President of the United States does not have unlimited authority to suspend our rule of law and due process rights, and where this principle is tested best is how we treat those we capture.

If they're Al-Qaeda, prove it in a court of law, throw them in a prison if GUILTY, and throw away the key. let them rot in Jail

If they're regular POWs from Afghanistan and Iraq (NOT Al-Qaeda), hold them as stipulated by the Geneva Conventions OR how other civilized Western nations do it, then release them when the conflict with Afghanistan and Iraq is over.

Simple procedures that would make us actually fulfill our stated values better (rather than say we stand for democracy but look the other way when we feel like it), and that would do the job excellently to prosecute these wars and the war on terrorism better.

Where did I say I align myself with Al-Qaeda and 9/11 in those statements?

[La Enchiladita]

Victory for Euro-weenies.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The jurisdictional part of the decision interpreted the Detainee Treatment Act, passed by Congress late last year to curtail court authority to rule on Guantanamo cases. The Court interpreted that law as not applying to cases already pending."

That law might have been considered an (unconstitutional) ex-post-facto law if applied to detainees who had already initiated legal proceedings. But I thought there was precedent for military tribunals going all the way back through our history. Several posters have referred to military tribunals initiated by FDR - for acts occurring on U.S. soil - and approved by the USSC. What did this court have to say about that?

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

They have made their decision, now let them enforce it.

[ChuckShick]

No. Not really. The Constitution states that "This constitution . . . all Treaties made, or which shall be made, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." There is a semicolon in the clause, which sets off two types of laws: the Constitution and laws pursuant thereof and treaties. The words 'in pursuance thereof' only applied to Congressional law, not treaties because the Founders wanted to preserve treaties made prior to the enactment of the Constitution. I believe there are a number of treaties that we have signed that state things that violate or run counter to the Bill of Rights. They, of course, are not the supreme law of the land because of the wording of Art. VI and the subsequent cases, Reid being one of them. Reid v. Covert, decided in 1956, states that the court has "regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution [U.S.] over a treaty."