Latest in Doe v. Mattis
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released an unredacted version of its ruling in the case of Doe v. Mattis. The redacted version was released on May 9, 2018 and is available here. The unredacted opinion, which was released pursuant to a motion from New York Times reporter Charlie Savage, is available here and below.
His name, it turns out, is Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh.
A joint status report is expected Monday in Doe v. Mattis, in which the United States and the ACLU are locked in legal battle over the fate of an unnamed U.S.-Saudi dual citizen whom the U.S. alleges to be an enemy combatant captured in Syria. The case presents lots of interesting legal issues, many of which Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck have covered with their usual insight and attention to detail (available here).
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces captured an American-Saudi dual citizen last September suspected to be a member of the Islamic State. Because of his citizenship, he was quickly transferred to Defense Department custody and is being held in Iraq. After nine months of detention and litigation over this U.S.
We’re back after a one-week layoff! No SCOTUS announcement yet, alas, but we do have this to offer:
1. Doe v. Mattis and the upcoming hearing on the government’s plan to release Doe in Syria
2. The military commissions and the retirement of Judge Spath
3. Over in the civilian court system, Uzair Paracha, convicted back in 2005, just won a motion for a new trial based on newly-discovered evidence (involving CSRT and other statements from GTMO detainees)
The government has filed a notice with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Doe v. Mattis, informing the court that phone calls between Doe and his attorneys were inadvertently recorded by the Defense Department. The department writes that the one Pentagon employee who heard the phone calls has not discussed the contents with anyone and has been instructed not to do so. The contents of the calls have been downloaded to a CD, which will be shared with the ACLU and subsequently destroyed. The filing is available in full below.
What to make of the court's split decision.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has released its opinion affirming the lower court's injunction on the U.S. military's planned transfer of John Doe, a U.S. citizen held in military custody in Iraq. The court ruled on Monday, but the opinion was previously under seal.
On Monday, we learned that a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has sided with the ACLU on the question whether the U.S. government can involuntarily transfer John Doe, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen whom U.S. forces have held as an enemy combatant in Iraq since last September.
There was a strange sense of deja vu this morning at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse. Three weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments over a preliminary injunction in Doe v. Mattis, the same panel returned to hear a second round of arguments over another preliminary injunction in the same case. And no, we still haven’t reached the merits; Doe continues to litigate his underlying habeas claim in district court.