Wednesday, February 22, 2012
This just in: the Office of Chief Defense Counsel in the Military Commissions asked the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Ethics Advisory Committee for an advisory opinion on whether defense counsel can comply with Rear Admiral David Woods’ order requiring attorney-client mail to be reviewed and remain consistent with their ethical obligations. The committee has [...]
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Steve is quite right that yesterday’s decision in Al Zahrani is no surprise. Indeed, after the total train wreck of an oral argument, in which the judges literally walked out on counsel for the plaintiffs, I wrote that “everyone in the room knows exactly what this opinion is going to say.” And it says exactly what everyone [...]
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Given Ben’s report on the oral argument, today’s fairly cryptic D.C. Circuit opinion in al-Zahrani v. Rodriguez, throwing out a damages suit arising out of the deaths of several inmates at Guantanamo, is hardly surprising. Writing for a himself and Judges Williams and Randolph, Chief Judge Sentelle held that the plaintiffs’ claims are barred by [...]
Also filed in Constitutional Rights, Detention: Law of: D.C. Circuit Development, Guantanamo: Litigation, Guantanamo: Litigation: D.C. Circuit, Interrogation: Interrogation Abuses: Civil Liability
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Tagged A. Raymond Randolph, Al Zahrani v. Rodriguez, Bivens, David Sentelle, Military Commissions Act, Minneci v. Pollard, Rasul II, Stephen Williams
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Friday, February 17, 2012
Ritika linked yesterday to this New York Times oped by USC law professor Mary Dudziak, which opens: THE defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, recently announced that America hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 as it did in Iraq last year. Yet at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, the United States continues to [...]
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Over at the Document Exploitation blog, Douglas Cox of the CUNY Law School has this very interesting post on redactions in the Alsabri Guantanamo habeas case–which was decided at the District Court level about a year ago and is now pending at the D.C. Circuit. It opens: A Guantanamo case currently awaiting an appellate decision from [...]
Saturday, February 11, 2012
NPR had a story today concerning the process of selecting between civilian and military commission prosecution options. It’s an important topic. Unfortunately, the story included the following mistaken description of the NDAA’s impact: …But here’s what’s new: the new Defense Authorization Act puts a thumb on the scale in favor of the military court system. [...]
Thursday, February 9, 2012
House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon released the following statement on the detainee recidivism report: House Armed Services Committee Releases Report on Risk Levels in the Release of Detainees from Guantanamo Bay WASHINGTON – Today the House Armed Services Committee Republicans released a report finding that both the Bush and Obama Administrations assumed a questionable [...]
Thursday, February 9, 2012
There apparently hasn’t been any press about this yet, but there’s a new lawsuit filed over Rear Admiral David Woods’ order last year requiring all attorney-client communications at Guantanamo to be reviewed before they are delivered to the detainee. We’ve posted before about the earlier case raising this issue, that brought by Mustafa Ahmed Al [...]
Also filed in Constitutional Rights, Detention: Law of, Detention: Law of: District Court Development, Guantanamo, Guantanamo Litigation: District Court, Guantanamo: Litigation, Guantanamo: Prosecutions, Terrorism Trials, Terrorism Trials: Military Commissions
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Tagged Al Hawsawi, Ammar Al Baluchi, III, James G. Connell, Rear Adm. David Woods
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Thursday, February 9, 2012
Back in March 2011, House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon and Ranking Minority Member Adam Smith instructed the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to examine transfers and releases of detainees from Guantanamo. The Subcommittee has now released the results of that investigation. The report has four major public “findings” (others are classified and thus not included [...]
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The reply brief in support of certiorari in Al-Madhwani v. Obama has been filed. We earlier posted Al Madhwani’s cert petition and the government’s opposition to cert. Al-Madhwani is seeking review of this DC Circuit opinion affirming his detention. That opinion, in turn, affirmed District Judge Thomas Hogan’s earlier opinion.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Raffaela is correct that there’s nothing terribly surprising in the D.C. Circuit’s Suleiman opinion, which was publicly released yesterday. In fact, the brief opinion–written by Judge Thomas Griffith for himself and Judges Merrick Garland and David Tatel–is notable chiefly for its routine tone in affirming a detention. Cases that were once ground-breaking–raising novel and difficult [...]
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The D.C. Circuit’s affirmance of the District Court’s judgment in Suleiman v. Obama, which we noted two weeks ago, is available here. Nothing terribly surprising in the opinion, which was written by Judge Griffith.
Brian Jenkins of RAND sharply criticizes the NDAA’s detention provisions in this short piece at Foreign Affairs. I am sympathetic to some of Brian’s arguments insofar as they defend the desirability of focusing on civilian criminal prosecution for cases arising within the United States. But if I am reading him correctly, he is under the mistaken [...]
Cori Crider of the British human rights group Reprieve stopped by my office yesterday to talk about her client, Yunus Rahmatullah–about whom Bobby has written and who is suddenly the subject of a very delicate bit of U.S.-British diplomacy. Rahmatullah, you’ll recall, is the Bagram detainee whose release a British court recently ordered the British [...]
Thursday, February 2, 2012
I share Bobby’s skepticism “that the public actually is primed to explode with anger” should the Obama administration notify Congress that it intends to send high-level Taliban detainees now at Guantanamo to Qatar. I am less confident, however, that Congress is not primed to explode should such notification occur. The reason, to put it simply, [...]
Thursday, February 2, 2012
From Reuters: One Republican lawmaker said public opposition would escalate sharply if and when the administration formally notified Congress it intends to transfer the prisoners, who come from the highest ranks of the Afghan militant movement. “If they do that, then all hell breaks loose. There’s just no way,” the lawmaker said on condition of [...]
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The US government is considering transferring a group of five Taliban detainees from GTMO to Qatar (to be held there by Qatari authorities) in furtherance of peace negotiations in relation to Afghanistan. Of course, as we all know, Congress has passed all sorts of legislation making it difficult to release or transfer detainees from GTMO, including most notably [...]
Well, that didn’t take long. The government only submitted its opposition to Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari’s petition for en banc review on January 19. But the D.C. Circuit today denied the petition. A D.C. Circuit panel decided Al Kandari’s case in December, after cancelling oral arguments.
No big surprise here: The D.C. Circuit has affirmed the judgment of the District Court in upholding the detention of Guantanamo detainee Abdul-Rahman Abdo Abulghaith Suleiman’s appeal. The opinion has not been released yet, but the order is available here. When the redacted opinion, filed by Judge Thomas Griffith, is made available, we will post it. Read [...]
The government has filed its opposition to cert in the case of Al Madhwani v. Obama–a Guantanamo habeas case. Al Madhwani’s cert petition seeks review of this DC Circuit opinion affirming his detention. That opinion, in turn, affirmed District Judge Thomas Hogan’s earlier opinion. The government’s argument is interesting because it explicitly invokes the new language in the NDAA: In [...]
Thursday, January 26, 2012
I don’t normally agree on detention policy matters with Seton Hall’s Mark Denbeaux–and there’s certainly some rhetoric in this piece in Jurist that I would never use and conclusiosn I do not reach. That said, I recommend it to those interested in why Latif is a big deal, a point I have made more than once myself. Denbeaux’s article [...]
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
As Jack and Steve have both noted, yesterday the Fourth Circuit issued its opinion in Lebron v. Rumsfeld, the appeal seeking reversal of a district court’s decision denying Jose Padilla declaratory and equitable relief against several current and former U.S. officials. While Steve has also posted some initial thoughts on the opinion here (and more is sure to [...]
Also filed in Detention: Law of, Detention: Law of: Other, Interrogation, Interrogation: Abuses, Interrogation: Interrogation Abuses: Civil Liability
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Tagged 2006 Military Commissions Act, Arar v. Ashcroft, Bivens, Detainee Treatment Act, Donald Rumsfeld, Estella Lebron, Jose Padilla, Lebron v. Rumsfeld, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
As Ben pointed out yesterday, the Washington Post report about the possibility that non-Afghan detainees held at Parwan will be repatriated to their home countries is significant news. Apart from its import for U.S. detention policy generally, the development, if true, may have bearing on the factual underpinnings in Al Maqaleh v. Gates, the case [...]
Also filed in AUMF, AUMF: Scope and Reach, Detention: Law of, Detention: Law of: District Court Development, Detention: Operations in Afghanistan, NDAA
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Tagged Al Maqaleh, Al-Bakri, Al-Najar, AUMF, John Bates, Washington Post
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
This story in today’s Washington Post won’t get the attention it would garner if it dealt with Guantanamo, but put it in the category of Very Important if True. According to Post reporters Peter Finn and Julie Tate, The Obama administration is considering the repatriation of most, if not all, of the non-Afghan detainees held at [...]
Jack just flagged the Fourth Circuit’s unanimous 39-page opinion throwing out Lebron v. Rumsfeld–one of the two pending Bivens suits brought by Jose Padilla arising out of his detention (and alleged abuse) as an “enemy combatant.” Although Padilla’s allegations (if true) would have stated serious violations of his constitutional rights arising out of his long-term incommunicado [...]
