Ben’s two questions in response to my post yesterday on the D.C. Circuit’s decision in al-Zahrani are both right on the money, but I think they both have answers–and take a shot below the fold.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.
Don’t let it ever be said that the D.C. Circuit always rules against detainees. Today, a three-judge panel ruled kept Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul’s military commission appeal alive–likely against Al Bahlul’s will. The government, as you may recall from prior coverage, had challenged whether the Al Bahlul had really authorized the appeal of his conviction and [...]
The government has filed its answer to Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi’s petition for a writ of mandamus concerning monitoring of attorney-client communications at Guantanamo. Al Hawsawi’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the mail screening has already been denied. The government now argues: Petitioner is a military detainee at the United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Military commission [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The D.C. Circuit has batted back Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop the new mail search policy at Guantanamo Bay. A per curiam order by a panel consisting of Judges Merrick Garland, Janice Rogers Brown, and Judith Rogers says that: Petitioner has not satisfied the stringent requirements for an injunction pending court [...]
As we noted at the end of December, Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari filed a motion for rehearing en banc in the D.C. Circuit, asking the court to consider whether Federal Rule of Evidence 1101(e) applies to Guantanamo habeas corpus cases. The 3-judge panel, composed of Judges Brett Kavanaugh, Laurence Silberman, and Douglas Ginsburg, issued a per [...]
Against the al-Nashiri backdrop, the government has now filed its brief on the merits in United States v. Hamdan (the first post-conviction appeal under the Military Commissions Acts of 2006 and 2009), which is set to be argued to a D.C. Circuit panel (Chief Judge Sentelle and Judges Ginsburg and Kavanaugh) on May 3. The central [...]
Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al-Kandari has filed a petition for rehearing en banc with the D.C. Circuit Court in his case against the U.S. His singular question is whether the Federal Rules of Evidence apply to habeas corpus cases brought by Guantanamo detainees. The D.C. Circuit decided his case earlier this month, after cancelling oral arguments. [...]
Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman responds to the government’s argument against his cert petition in his new reply brief, available here. It opens: The petition in this case presents in stark terms the D.C. Circuit’s failure to articulate and apply a standard for detention of the Guantánamo prisoners that places any meaningful limits on the Executive Branch’s detention [...]
At least, Adam Liptak does in a well-worth-reading column about Latif. Take that, editorial staff! On a more serious note, here’s the money quote: Latif is the next great Guantánamo case–whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear it or not. As things stand now, Judge Tatel wrote, “it is hard to see what is left of [...]
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 Law Review that attempts objectively to evaluate the charge that the Court of Appeals has been [...]
The D.C. Circuit has decided the case of Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari, a Guantanamo habeas petitioner. The writing has been on the wall for Al Kandari since the court abruptly canceled oral arguments in his case. The unpublished per curiam judgment, by Judges Brett Kavanaugh, Laurence Silberman, and Douglas Ginsburg, reads as follows: The petitioner argues [...]
The saga of whether Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul’s counsel rightly represents him before the D.C. Circuit in his military commissions appeal continues. The government, you’ll recall from prior coverage, has challenged whether the Al Bahlul had really authorized the appeal–arguing that there was evidence that he specifically did the opposite and that the appeal [...]
The government has, unsurprisingly, filed a brief in opposition to Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman’s cert petition. Uthman, a Guantanamo habeas petitioner, had asked the Supreme Court to review this decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the legality of his detention. The government presents the question in the case as follows: Whether [...]
Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First writes in with the following comments on Latif and the detention provisions of the NDAA: There’s already been great commentary on the Latif case here from Ben, Sabin Willett and others. On Sunday the New York Times editorial board weighed in, writing that the D.C. Circuit Court in the [...]
What do you think the chances are that the New York Times editorial folks could have managed to produce this editorial–and without any glaring factual errors–without having read this post and this one and this one? And isn’t it fun to imagine how much it must have burned them up to rely so heavily on Lawfare? [...]
Several days ago, the government moved in the D.C. Circuit to challenge the counsel–and thus end the appeal–of Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul, whose military commission conviction and life sentence is currently on appeal in that court. The court ordered counsel, Michel Paradis, to response and gave him until yesterday to do so. Paradis [...]
Sabin Willett, who represented the Guantanamo Uighurs in Parhat and Kiyemba, writes in with the following comments about Latif: It is not hyperventilation to say, as so many have said, that Latif guts Boumediene, because — trust me — every prisoner has an intelligence report. Now the prisoner hasn’t just lost his judicial remedy to [...]
I was going to write an oral argument preview this week for the D.C. Circuit’s coming oral argument in the case of Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari, the next Guantanamo habeas petitioner to come before the court. But, well, there’s not going to be an argument in Kandari. Why? The D.C. Circuit last week, on its [...]
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