I meant to post on this last week and clean forgot until I heard a bit of it on CSPAN radio yesterday. The Heritage Foundation held this event on detainee policy featuring all four people who have held the job … Read more »
So we learn from this order, handed down yesterday, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In a letter filed after the Hedges oral argument, attorneys for the government had cited the Supreme Court’s Clapper … Read more »
The New York Times reports today that “U.S. Again Delays Transfer of Bagram Prison to Afghan Forces.” (Bobby discussed some of these issues, including the “Daqduq problem” issues, a couple of days ago). The article quotes U.S. and … Read more »
One of the more interesting structural constitutional questions to emerge from the post-9/11 detention litigation has been the previously under-explored relationship between the Constitution’s Suspension and Due Process Clauses–and the extent to which they might do separate work with regard … Read more »
With Abraham Lincoln back in the news, the Federal Judicial Center has posted a series of neat documents about the suspension of habeas corpus and the Ex Parte Merryman case. Here’s a brief history of the case. Here’s an … Read more »
Steve has already noted (and critiqued) this Washington Post story about continued “renditions” by the United States government. The term “renditions” is used in so many ways (often, as Steve suggests, with connotations of harsh interrogation), and this article defines … Read more »
Under the snazzy headline “Renditions continue under Obama, despite due-process concerns,” today’s Washington Post has a long article on the overseas arrest, detention, and subsequent criminal indictment in New York (civilian) federal court of three “European men with Somali roots.” … Read more »
Looks like the D.C. Circuit is going to get another crack at Bagram jurisdiction. Maqaleh II, decided by the district court in mid-October, is headed up. Good luck with that!
Below the fold, I’m pasting in a reply by Jon Hafetz from Seton Hall to last Friday’s post by Marty Lederman and me on the new Feinstein Amendment and the military detention of non-citizens apprehended within the United States–which was … Read more »
Chief Judge Lamberth has granted the government’s motion to dismiss a first amended habeas petition filed by a Pakistani citizen held at Bagram, following the Circuit’s decision in al Maqaleh (and the subsequent decision on remand in that case by … Read more »
The British Supreme Court—in its Michaelmas Term—has handed down the case of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v. Rahmatullah. You might remember the Rahmatullah case, which we covered here and here and here. It concerns … Read more »
I have now read through Al Maqaleh v. Gates and Hamidullah v. Obama, which are both brief reads. I don’t have a great deal to say about them, except that they well represent the end of the line for … Read more »
Petitioners yesterday filed supplementary declarations and exhibits in Al Maqaleh, better known as the after-Boumediene-does-Guantanamo-habeas-jurisdiction-run-to-Bagram case.
During a hearing on the government’s motion to dismiss, the petitioners had asked to supplement the record with evidence of, among other … Read more »
Per Ben‘s and Bobby‘s responses to my post from earlier this week, I think one point needs to be made crystal clear: If Ben and Bobby are correct, then the phrase “substantial support” in the March 13 brief… Read more »
Based on the voluminous media and blog coverage of last week’s decision in Hedges v. Obama, in which Judge Forrest permanently enjoined at least part of the detention provision of the FY2012 NDAA [section 1021(b)(2)], one of two things … Read more »
Ben earlier noted an order, in which Judge John Bates instructed petitioners in Al Maqleh v. Obama to file, by no later than today, a “short summary, not to exceed two pages,” of any newly discovered facts that might … Read more »
I’m happy to report that I’ve recently completed drafting an article that has been much on my mind for the past few years. Beyond the Battlefield, Beyond al Qaeda: The Destabilizing Legal Architecture of Counterterrorism (Michigan Law Review, forthcoming 2013) … Read more »
U.S. District Judge John Bates has entered the following order in Maqaleh, the case testing federal court habeas jurisdiction for detainees at Bagram:
MINUTE ORDER: The Court has received 81 petitioners’ notice that they have recently discovered facts that
Over at SCOTUSblog, there’s a terrific symposium underway to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of The Least Dangerous Branch, Alex Bickel’s seminal work on the Supreme Court and judicial review. My own contribution thereto–”The Passive Virtues as Means, Not … Read more »
Following last week’s motions hearing in Maqaleh and Hamidullah, the cases seeking habeas jurisdiction over the detention facility at Bagram, the petitioners in Maqaleh have filed a supplemental brief arguing against the government’s motion to dismiss. Here are some … Read more »
Here’s your off-the-cuff read-out of this morning’s hearing before U.S. District Judge John Bates in Al-Maqaleh v. Gates and Hamidullah v. Obama, better known as the “can we get a little GTMO-style habeas review over U.S. detentions at Bagram” cases… Read more »
As Ben noted last month, Judge Bates recently has shown some interest in possibly moving the Boumediene-at-Bagram case, Al Maqaleh v. Rumsfeld, along toward a resolution. After several very quiet months seemingly mulling over the pleadings before him, … Read more »
Steve’s post on Garcia and Munaf got me thinking about seepage. Remember this? It is the idea that seemingly fact-bound national security cases can announce rules of more general applicability – ones that could influence other corners of the law. … Read more »
Yesterday’s news out of the Supreme Court may well have obscured another significant detainee-related legal development: As Lyle Denniston has noted over at SCOTUSblog, on Friday, the en banc Ninth Circuit handed down a thoroughly fractured decision in Garcia … Read more »
As both Wells and Ben noted previously, there are renewed signs of interest in the fate of military detention in Afghanistan, in the form of an NPR story by Quil Lawrence and an order that same day from Judge Bates … Read more »
This morning, National Public Radio ran this story, which Wells linked to earlier, noting that the concern that the United States was recreating Guantanamo at Bagram:
Today, U.S. District Judge John Bates issued the following curious order in both … Read more »
I’ve now had more of a chance to read through Judge Forrest’s decision Wednesday in Hedges v. Obama, which (seems to) enter a preliminary injunction against some or all of section 1021 of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act. … Read more »
Out today, a 68-page opinion from Judge Katherine Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, entering a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from enforcing the substantive detention authority codified by the FY2012 NDAA … Read more »
I don’t think today’s Ninth Circuit decision throwing out Jose Padilla’s damages suit against John Yoo is particularly surprising–notwithstanding the typical (albeit utterly and alarmingly inaccurate) trope about the liberal Ninth Circuit. That doesn’t mean that the suit was “baseless” … Read more »
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court decision allowing Jose Padilla to sue John Yoo. Writing for a unanimous panel consisting of himself, 9th Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith, and Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, a district judge … Read more »
It is always an awkward spectacle when a court has to climb down, having issued an opinion that it has no real power to effectuate. That’s what has now happened in the British Court of Appeals in the case of … Read more »
An interesting Afghanistan habeas decision today, from the UK: Yunus Ramhmatullah v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs et ano. (Court of Appeals (Civil Division)).
In an opinion by the Master of the Rolls (i.e., David Neuberger, Baron … Read more »
For reasons I plan to elaborate upon in this and subsequent posts, I’m not at all convinced that the conference version of the NDAA is substantially better than the House or Senate version (or that either is better than nothing)… … Read more »
Whatever else one might say about the D.C. Circuit’s jurisprudence in the Guantanamo litigation, it’s certainly been a jobs program… To that end, I thought I’d post the (just-published) final version of an essay of mine in the Seton Hall … Read more »
Tomorrow, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will hear oral arguments in Lebron v. Rumsfeld, in which Jose Padilla and his mother, Estella Lebron, appeal a district court’s dismissal of a Bivens claim against former Secretary … Read more »
Today the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument in Gul v. Obama and Hamad v. Obama, the consolidated appeals that ask whether a federal district court has jurisdiction to consider the claims of habeas petitioners Nazar Gul and Adel Hassan … Read more »
As Josh Gerstein reports over at Politico, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates today granted the Al Maqaleh petitioners’ motion for leave to file amended habeas petitions. Al Maqaleh concerns the habeas petitions of detainees held at the Bagram … Read more »
So here are the first two elements of the Human Rights First report card, how I would recast them, and the grades I would assign. HRF’s initial element reads:
Grade: A-Standing Firm Against Use of Torture and Detainee
An interesting new issue has landed at the D.C. Circuit: Whether courts retain habeas jurisdiction even after a detainee leaves U.S. custody.
Last week, two former Guantánamo detainees filed their merits brief in a consolidated case before the appeals court. … Read more »
Friday, May 24, 2013
Coverage of President Obama’s speech yesterday is plentiful: Here are Peter Baker of the New York Times, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller of the Washington Post, and Mark Mazzetti of the Times with an analysis of the key points of the speech. Scott Wilson of the Post also provides a rundown of the speech, and cites Ben. The Associated Press reports on lifting the transfer ban on Yemeni detainees, and Colleen McCain Nelson, Adam Entous, and Julia E. Barnes… Read more »
