Posted on 06/20/2017 4:59:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
A busy Supreme Court on Monday ruled, in a vote of 4-2, that former September 11 detainees do not have the right to sue government officials for money damages.
This is an issue for Congress, not the judiciary, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued in the court’s opinion. Furthermore, he said, the Second Circuit “erred” in allowing respondents’ detention policy claims to move forward under the context of Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, which determined that federal officers would need to pay damages to compensate individuals who were subjected to unconstitutional conditions. Expanding Bivens is a “disfavored” judicial activity, Kennedy noted.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the public sent 96,000 tips to the FBI regarding what they believed was suspicious behavior. The Court notes that while many of these were legitimate, others were the effect of a "fear of Arabs and Muslims." The agency interviewed 1,000 people with suspected links to the attacks, discovering that many of those interviewees were in the U.S. illegally. As such, these individuals were arrested and detained. If they were determined not to be connected to 9/11, he or she was treated by the authorities just as an illegal alien at the border. Eighty-four “aliens” were detained, however, after authorities had reason to believe they were connected to the terror attack. A group of detainees held in a Brooklyn jail filed a lawsuit against federal officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who is now the special counsel for the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.
In the opinion, the justices do note that some prisoners were often subject to “harsh conditions.” They allowed one suit to continue against the warden at the Metropolitan Detention Center, over allegations of physical and mental abuse, including slamming prisoners into walls.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch were not eligible to rule in the case. Justice Stephen Breyer issued the dissent, stating, in part, “History warns of the risk to liberty in times of national crisis."
The risk to liberty is not so much the failure to grant privileges to insurgents as it is the failure to stop insurgencies.
Thank you, SCOTUS.
The risk is to be assessed by the Executive. The Judiciary should not be taking the authority to evaluate the risk away from the Executive. If individual abuses are claimed, they can be handled by the Judiciary through the court system.
Gorsuch is new. Why the 2 commie flunkies?
Ruh roh.
So, the executive branch can’t be sued by foreign entitities for breach of their non-existent constitutional rights?
Not a lawyer, but can this decision in any way have a tangential application to Trump’s immigration executive order case to the positive?
HombreSecreto wrote:
“Not a lawyer, but can this decision in any way have a tangential application to Trump’s immigration executive order case to the positive?”
That executive order has existing legislation to back it up, so this statement by the SCOTUS is interesting.
What constitution does Breyer follow?
The article does not explain why three justices were ineligible to rule on the case. Does anyone else know why?
Congress? Many, not all, of them are do nothings worried about keeping their power and paychecks.
This is an issue for Congress, not the judiciary, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued in the court’s opinion
So was “homosexual marriage” . . .or the states.
But not you, you cowardly, pandering POS
GTHO You’ve been there FAR too long
It doesn’t matter what he said. The left lost and our side won.
Kagan and Sotomayor probably have friends or family in Gitmo. /s
The case was heard on January 18 before Neil Gorsuch was appointed. It is an eight year old case orginally filed in 2009. Sotomayer and Kagen may have been involved in earlier iterations or other immigration issues before joining the court. The decision say the same as posted in the article and does not elaborate on why.
Thanks for the explanation.
Nope. And if’n we catch you we can throw your sorry ass in jail forever if’n we want to an thar aint one single thing you can do about it!
Lazy journalists can’t even ask questions the general public comes up with.
I’m pretty sure that’s one of the first questions people would have on the ruling.
Q: What constitution does Breyer follow?
A: The one that allows the every increasing expanse of the Federal leviathan, counter to the plain English of its creation.
Breyer is not the ONLY ‘judge’ to do so, either.
What do I win? /s
Bump!
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