Lawyers for Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, a Yemeni detained at Guantanamo, yesterday petitioned the D.C. Circuit for a writ of mandamus. The gist: Abdullah wants the circuit court to force the district court decide a long-pending motion of his.… Read more »
As Raff noted last week, the lawyers for the defendant-appellant in United States v. al-Bahlul–the military commission case in which the D.C. Circuit surprisingly granted rehearing en banc–had moved to “clarify” the scope of such rehearing, including … Read more »
Earlier today, in Anam et. al. v. Obama, the district court sought further briefing on its power to hear a GTMO detainee’s complaints of mistreatment by detention personnel.
Background: an April 15 hearing had been set on hunger striker … Read more »
Brian Foster of Covington & Burling, responds to my comments on his earlier guest post as follows:
I don’t derive a double standard merely from your sympathy for the instinct behind the Latif majority’s factual assessment. I’m focusing on the
Brian Foster of Covington & Burling, who represents several Guantanamo detainees, writes in with the following comments on my defense of CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman—and the case of his former client, Adnan Latif:
I’m interested in the basis and
Back in January, we devoted a fair amount of attention to the DOJ Supplemental Brief in the al-Bahlul military commission appeal–and the rather significant internal debate within the Administration about whether to accept the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in Hamdan II… Read more »
The United States has filed its appellate brief in the case of Al-Janko v. Gates et al., a damages action brought by a former Guantanamo detainee against former government officers in their individual capacities. (You can find more background … Read more »
Remember the Guantanamo detention case of Hentif v. Obama?
In 2011, the government convinced the district court to reject Fadhel Hussein Saleh Hentif’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In July of 2012, the district judge noted, on … Read more »
Yesterday, we posted the government’s supplemental brief in the Al Bahlul military commission appeal in the D.C. Circuit, the headline of which was the government’s concession that Judge Kavanaugh’s opinion for the Court of Appeals in Hamdan II requires reversal … Read more »
…is available here. In a nutshell:
Hamdan II requires reversal of Bahlul’s convictions by military commission of providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit war crimes, and solicitation to commit war crimes. Because the Court is bound by
About six weeks ago, I flagged the (in my view, alarming) filing by the government of a notice of appeal to the D.C. Circuit in the Guantanamo MOU/continuing access-to-counsel litigation. Late last night, the government filed this unopposed motion … Read more »
The D.C. Circuit has handed down its latest Guantanamo habeas case, Khairkhwa v. Obama. The brief, unanimous opinion by Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph for himself and Judges Judith Rogers and Merrick Garland contains no surprises. As expected, it … Read more »
Courtesy of Todd Ruger from the National Law Journal, it appears that D.C. Circuit Chief Judge David Sentelle will be taking senior status as of February 12, 2013. That will reduce to seven the total number of active D.C. … Read more »
[Update (11:41 a.m. EDT)]: The always reliable Josh Gerstein already had a story up on this late last night over @ Politico, which reports that an “administration official” suggested that “Friday’s filings were made in order to keep open … Read more »
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit filed a per curiam order in the case of Bahlul v. United States, ordering the parties to file briefs addressing the implications of the court’s decision in … Read more »
Steve, Ben, Jack, and Bobby have already posted some excellent thoughts on the DC Circuit’s decision in Hamdan II. I agree with many of them. In particular, I think Jack is right to suggest that, wholly … Read more »
I somehow missed the D.C. Circuit habeas appeal of Guantanamo detainee Abdul Qader Ahmen Hussein, whose case is to be argued today. It appeals this decision from a year ago by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. The oral argument will … Read more »
In his post on yesterday’s decision in (what I think we should all call) Hamdan II, Jack writes “The historical arguments for a conspiracy charge in military commissions under the laws of war, while not slam dunks, are . … Read more »
Five brief thoughts on yesterday’s Hamdan decision:
First, I am less confident than Steve and Ben that this opinion forecloses conspiracy claims in military commissions. The historical arguments for a conspiracy charge in military commissions under the laws of … Read more »
I largely agree with Steve’s excellent post on the D.C. Circuit’s Hamdan decision today. In particular, and most importantly, I agree that the logic of the opinion strongly indicates that military commissions will likely not be available to try allegations … Read more »
Raff already shared the news re: this morning’s D.C. Circuit decision reversing Salim Hamdan’s military commission conviction for providing material support to terrorism (MST), holding that MST wasn’t a recognized violation of the laws of war prior to 2006 (when … Read more »
The D.C. Circuit Court’s opinion that we’ve all been waiting for has come down. The D.C. Circuit has vacated Hamdan’s conviction for material support for terrorism in the Military Commission and reversed the Court of Military Commission Review’s judgment. The … Read more »
This slipped by me on Friday, when I was in Cambridge plotting the next phase of Lawfare‘s expansion. The D.C. Circuit has issued an unredacted opinion in this case, Ameziane v. Obama, which actually came down in … Read more »
Today marks the five-month anniversary of the oral arguments before the D.C. Circuit in United States v. Hamdan, the first post-conviction appeal to reach the Court of Appeals under the Military Commissions Acts of 2006 and 2009 (and about … Read more »
I had to restrain myself this morning at the D.C. Circuit from interrupting proceedings with an emergency request for an on-the-spot ruling in Wittes v. FAA—a case which has admittedly does not exist—that the agency’s action with respect to … Read more »
To the list of upcoming habeas cases in the court of appeals, add these: first, Khairkhwa v. Obama, which is set for argument on October 5th; and second, Hussain v. Obama, which is set for argument on October 18th.… Read more »
The D.C. Circuit will hear its second round of arguments in the case of Mukhtar Yahia Naji Al Warafi on September 21. Warafi is an interesting Guantanamo habeas case with an interesting and unique history. Judge Royce Lamberth first … Read more »
The government has just posted a memorandum from March 12, 1945 in the Bahlul docket concerning the question of whether participation in a conspiracy to commit an offense against the law of war is punishable in a military commission.
The … Read more »
Last week, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Henderson and Brown handed down a per curiam order in response to the government’s motion to remand Ravil Mingazov’s case to the District Court for consideration of his motion there under Rule … Read more »
Ben beat me to it, but this morning, the D.C Circuit issued a terse order removing United States v. al Bahlul (the “other” military commission appeal) from its argument calendar (it was scheduled to be argued before Judges Henderson, … Read more »
This is interesting. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has just entered the following docket order in the military commission appeal of Ali Hamza Ahmad al Bahlul:
CLERK’S ORDER filed . . . , on the court’s own motion, that
Here’s the opinion–from a panel consisting of Judges Merrick Garland and Karen LeCraft Henderson and Chief Judge David Sentelle. The opinion denying Obaydullah’s Guantanamo habeas appeal is a per curiam, though Judge Sentelle dissents on grounds that the … Read more »
Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul has filed his reply brief in his appeal of his military commission conviction in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. You’ll recall that Al Bahul requested his appeal to … Read more »
Just a quick follow-up on my post of this morning. A correspondent points out to me that on David Remes’s definition of “prevailing,” Boumediene itself should be counted as a government win. After all, the Supreme Court in that … Read more »
The government has filed its supplemental brief in Hamdan on the question of whether the case is moot. We shared a few weeks back Hamdan’s supplemental brief on the issue. As Wells explained in that post, the three-judge panel in … Read more »
In his response to my earlier post on the New York Times’s 19-to-0 figure–which turns out, he says, to be his 19-to-0 figure–David Remes makes several interesting points worthy of comment. I wish to focus on two here. I will … Read more »
Habeas lawyer David Remes writes in to defend the New York Times‘s use of 19-to-0 as the government’s win-loss record before the D.C. Circuit in habeas cases. He makes, to be honest, a better case than I thought was … Read more »
Just in time for the weekend, here’s the latest in Mingazov. As I noted yesterday, Ravil Mingazov posted his response in opposition to the government’s motion to remand his case back to the District Court. Like clockwork, the government … Read more »
There has been some movement in the long-stalled Mingazov case—one of the Guantanamo habeas cases that’s still kicking around. Way back in December 2010, Larkin shared the government’s brief in its appeal of U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy’s grant … Read more »
A few days ago, the New York Times editorial page made a remarkable claim: “In the 19 [Guantanamo habeas] appeals [the D.C. Circuit] has decided, the court has never allowed a prisoner to prevail.” As I pointed out at … Read more »
I actually don’t have much to say, now that it’s here, on the New York Times editorial on the detention case cert denials. It is almost exactly the editorial I predicted the Times would run (“the inevitable editorial bashing the … Read more »
At the risk of boring readers who have long-since grown tired of this exchange, let me just offer three quick responses to Bobby’s thoughtful intervention in the back-and-forth between Ben and me on whether the D.C. Circuit really did actively … Read more »
Being in a time zone very far from home, I am late to the discussion of the cert denials in the Guantanamo cases. I have only one thought to offer beyond what Steve said earlier–with which I almost entirely … Read more »
As Wells already noted, the Supreme Court denied certiorari today without notation or dissent in all of the seven pending Guantanamo “merits” habeas cases (i.e., cases where the central issue goes to whether the government has proven … Read more »
I have resisted linking to the latest updates to Bobby, Larkin, and my paper–The Emerging Law of Detention 2.0: The Guantanamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking–because the redesign of the Brookings web site temporarily messed up a bunch of … Read more »
You’ll recall that the three-judge panel in Hamdan v. United States - or, gauging by the questions at oral argument, really only Judge Douglas Ginsburg – was interested in whether the defendant’s release from custody had mooted his appeal. During … Read more »
We noted last week that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul’s petition for an initial hearing in that court en banc. The government has now filed its respondent brief in the case … Read more »
The unofficial transcript from May 3rd’s oral argument in Hamdan v. USA in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals before Chief Circuit Judge David Sentelle and Circuit Judges Douglas Ginsburg and Brett Kavanaugh, is now available. You can read it … Read more »
We’ve blogged before about the “other” pending D.C. Circuit military commission case–al-Bahlul v. United States–including the petitioner’s request for initial en banc hearing. That request has now been summarily denied by the D.C. Circuit in this order… Read more »
I have now read the new Seton Hall report to which I linked earlier and I have to say: I am perplexed.
The report’s thesis, in a nutshell, seems to boil down to two propositions: that the D.C. Circuit’s Al … Read more »
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
William P. Barr (former Attorney General), Jamie S. Gorelick (former Deputy AG), and Kenneth L. Wainstein (former Assistant AG for National Security) have this Times op-ed on the AP subpoena controversy. They write:
While neither we nor the critics know the circumstances behind the prosecutors’ decision to issue this subpoena, we do know from the government’s public disclosures that the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak
