Latest in Al Bahlul
The latest appeal, one in a long line of many, raises again an interesting issue about whether the military commission convening authority is properly appointed under the U.S. Constitution.
On March 21, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR) upheld Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul’s conviction and life sentence for conspiracy to commit war crimes. The court also dismissed Bahlul’s challenge that the military commission that convicted him lacked jurisdiction because the appointment of the convening authority (CA) for the military commissions was statutorily and constitutionally improper.
Yesterday, Ali Hamza Al Bahlul filed his reply brief on cert in Bahlul v. U.S., which challenges the retroactive designation of conspiracy as a war crime in military commissions. Here's the brief:
The Justice Department filed a brief on Wednesday opposing the cert petition in Bahlul v. United States. Counsel for Ali Hamza Suliman al Bahlul filed the cert petition in March to seek review of an October 2016 D.C. Circuit decision. That ruling overturned a previous D.C.
Counsel for Ali Hamza Suliman al Bahlul have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court appealing the October 2016 ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of the District of Columbia sitting en banc.
On Thursday, October 20th, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled once again on the case of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, a Guantanamo detainee convicted by a military commission for inchoate conspiracy to commit war crimes. In a divided and inconclusive en banc decision, the D.C.
Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul is a Yemeni citizen, currently held in Guantanamo Bay, who was convicted in a military commission under the 2006 Military Commissions Act for “inchoate conspiracy” to commit war crimes. After several rounds of judicial review, a D.C. Circuit panel in 2015 heard a challenge to his conviction on Article I and Article III grounds.
In an en banc decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Ali Hamza al-Bahlul's conviction by military commission for conspiracy to commit war crimes. The decision is the opposite of the court's panel decision last June, which vacated al-Bahlul's conviction. The court's decision is also available here.
As Jack noted earlier this morning, Lawfare's Alex Loomis has a fascinating new paper up on SSRN (for the moment, anyway) about the scope of Congress's Article I power to "define and punish . . .
Anyone following the Guantánamo military commissions would do well to read Bob Loeb and Helen Klein's trenchant take on last Friday's D.C. Circuit decision in In re Khadr, in which the Court of Appeals declined to issue a writ of mandamus even while agreeing that there may be a serious question "whether the civilians who serve as judges on the U.S.