Today, counsel for Saeed Mohammed Hatim filed an “Emergency Motion Concerning Access to Counsel,” both in the Yemeni detainee’s recently reactivated habeas action, and in In Re: Guantanamo Bay Detainee Continued Access to Counsel, a separate matter on … Read more »
We’ve written a fair amount already about Chief Judge Lamberth’s September 2012 decision regarding the Guantánamo detainees’ continuing right of access to counsel (not to mention his March 2013 decision criticizing the government for its foot-dragging in declassifying various filings … Read more »
That’s the gist of this report, filed earlier today by Politico’s Josh Gerstein:
A federal judge declined Monday to take action on behalf of a hunger-striking prisoner at Guantanamo Bay whose attorneys say his life is in danger
Yesterday, pursuant to Judge Thomas Hogan’s recent order, lawyers for habeas petitioner Musa’ab Omar al-Madhwani filed a brief addressing the district court’s jurisdiction to hear al-Madhwani’s emergency challenge to the conditions of his confinement at Guantanamo.
The detainee—who is … 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
See this letter from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Lietzau, on behalf of Secretary Hagel…
At bottom, it seems increasingly clear that there are two very different accounts out there about what’s happening on the ground at Guantánamo–that provided by … Read more »
Last Monday, I flagged Chief Judge Lamberth’s important new decision in a Guantánamo habeas case–Barre v. Obama–in which, among other things, he excoriated the government for how long it has taken them to release declassified (and therefore public) … Read more »
Here are a bunch, which I should have included in my post this morning on Musa’ab Al Madhwani’s emergency motion on clothing, temperature, and potable water:
An emergency motion filed before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan the other day alleges that guards at Guantanamo are denying a hunger-striking detainee access to potable water and are cranking up the air conditioning to freeze the detainees. The government … Read more »
Even for those keeping up with the Guantánamo litigation, this decision by Chief Judge Lamberth, a declassified version of which was released on Friday, may have slipped under the radar. The specific issue in Barre v. Obama is yet another … 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 »
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has dismissed a civil suit by several former Guantanamo detainees arguing that they were subject to wrongful detention and harsh treatment at the base. His decision … Read more »
The D.C. district court issued two Guantánamo-related orders on Wednesday.
The first involved something of a triple habeas Hail Mary: Judge Richard Leon denied Obaydullah’s (no last name) motion for relief from (1) the court’s March 2012 denial of the … Read more »
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 »
Back in early November, Ben and I blogged about Fordham Professor Andrew Kent’s provocative new essay, “Do Boumediene Rights Expire?,” which he published in “PENNumbra,” the online companion to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. … Read more »
What’s a habeas petitioner to do, if 1) current and former U.S. military officials believe that he no longer poses a significant threat, and that his law of war detention is no longer necessary; but 2) a Periodic Review Board … Read more »
District Judge Paul L. Friedman has denied a motion for relief from judgment filed by habeas petitioner Hussain Salem Mohammad Almerfedi. (The court’s classified opinion is dated October 26; a redacted version was not released until yesterday.)
Almerfedi prevailed before … 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 »
Does anyone have any idea what this is about?
In March 2011, the government made classified filings in 10 cases involving high-value detainees. The filings have never become public, and I have been wondering for some time what they concern. … Read more »
Wells already posted U.S. District Judge John D. Bates’s opinion dismissing Maqaeleh. Judge Bates also dismissed the related case of Hamidullah. I’m reading them both now and will have thoughts later today.
Judge John Bates has granted the government’s motion to dismiss in Al-Maqaleh et al v. Gates—in which detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had petitioned for writs of habeas corpus. I’ve only glanced at the District Court’s opinion; here … Read more »
So we learn from Politico’s Josh Gerstein, who filed this report yesterday.
Here’s how Gerstein’s piece begins:
The U.S. Government has for the first time issued a public list of Guantanamo prisoners cleared for release or transfer, but who
Remember Nashiri v. MacDonald?
That’s the civil lawsuit that Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri, a defendant in a military commission case at Guantanamo, brought against Bruce MacDonald, the commissions’ Convening Authority. In short, Nashiri sought equitable relief, claiming that … Read more »
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth’s order is here. A few quick things about the ruling, which I’ve only skimmed thus far:
1. The bottom line is that the protective order’s access rules will continue in effect for detainees whose cases … Read more »
Earlier this week, Judge Rosemary Collyer rejected a proposed modification to protective orders entered in Mohammed al Qahtani’s habeas case. Al Qahtani’s lawyers had asked the judge to change the orders, so as to permit them to file a classified … 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 »
Earlier today, Judge Rosemary Collyer rejected an attempt by attorneys for detainee Mohammed al Qahtani to modify two protective orders entered in al Qahtani’s habeas case.
The proposed modification concerned court-imposed rules for handling sensitive material. In particular, the lawyers … 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 »
Here’s your read-out on this morning’s oral argument, before Chief Judge Royce Lamberth, in what Lawfarers have come to know as the Guantanamo counsel access dispute. (Background can be found here, here, here and here.) The question … Read more »
David Remes, an attorney for Guantanamo habeas petitioners Uthman and Esmail, has sent in this overview of the ongoing Guantanamo counsel access dispute.
In brief: Remes and others recently objected to the Department of Justice’s proposed “Memorandum of Understanding,” or … Read more »
This just in: the last words (for a few days, anyway) in the Guantanamo attorney-client access dispute now pending before Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Guantanamo detainees Uthman and Esmail, … Read more »
The Justice Department today filed its response to a motion, in which certain Guantanamo detainees had challenged the Department’s attempt to regulate the detainees’ access to their attorneys. The question was what that access would look like, once the … Read more »
Apparently prompted by David Remes’ motion regarding GTMO counsel access issues in Esmail [h/t Josh Gerstein at Politico], the government now has filed its own motion.
I’ve only glanced at the new filing, but it seems the government … Read more »
I received the following email from human rights lawyer David Remes about a filing he and his colleagues just made on Monday on behalf of his Guantanamo client Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail. Esmail lost his habeas case, and according to … 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 »
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 »
Was it clearly established in 2006-07 that GTMO detainees were entitled to the protections of the Fifth Amendment? A district judge in Washington State thinks so, adding that it was clearly established that these rights were violated in the case … Read more »
A judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Washington in Seattle has dismissed a Bivens action by a former Guantanamo detainee against former Defense Secretary Bob Gates. Adel Hassan Hamad is a Sudanese former detainee who claims … Read more »
Last year, Bobby, Larkin, and I released a paper entitled “The Emerging Law of Detention 2.0: The Guantanamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking.” The paper promised to be a kind of living document:
Rather than simply produce a new
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 … Read more »
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 … Read more »
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 … Read more »
Last week, Ben was perplexed by the government’s reply in opposition to a motion for a preliminary injunction in a mysterious case brought by Mustafa al Hawsawi over Rear Adm. Woods’ recent order regarding monitoring of lawyer-client communications at Guantanamo. … Read more »
On Thursday, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court in D.C. issued a little-noticed decision granting dismissal in Al Janko v. Gates. The case is noteworthy, however, because Al Janko–unlike other former detainees who have filed civil suits–“is … 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 »
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has released Judge Royce Lamberth’s opinion on remand in Warafi. Judge Lamberth first denied Makhtar Al-Warafi’s habeas petition some time back, but the D.C. Circuit remanded the case in part … Read more »
Judge Walton has released his unclassified opinion in Karim Bostan (ISN 975) v. Obama, denying Bostan’s habeas petition (the decisions appears to have issued in classified form on October 12th). The government had argued that Boston was part of an … Read more »
The estimable, if oddly-named, Bmaz of the Empty Wheel blog asks in a Tweet “Why did al-Hajj withdraw his Habeas petition? Did he just give up like others have?” Short answer: I don’t know at this stage. The joint joint … Read more »
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Leading the news: President Obama speaks today at the National Defense University on counterterrorism policy. Many are previewing the speech, including John. According to the New York Times’s Charlie Savage and Peter Baker, Obama will announce more stringent targeting criteria for non-battlefield strikes. This approach will govern the use of force against both citizens and non-citizens.
Here are the Washington … Read more »
