Boumediene v. Bush

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Boumediene v. Bush
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 5, 2007
Decided June 12, 2008
Full case name: Lakhdar Boumediene, et al., Petitioners
v.
George W. Bush, President of the United States, et al.
Docket no.: 06-1195
Citations: 553 U.S. ___; 128 S. Ct. 2229; 2008 WL 2369628; 2008 U.S. LEXIS 4887
Argument: Oral argument
Holding
Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts. 476 F.3d 981, reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice: John G. Roberts
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority by: Kennedy
Joined by: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence by: Souter
Joined by: Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent by: Roberts
Joined by: Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Dissent by: Scalia
Joined by: Roberts, Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
Art. 1, Sec. 9 of the U.S. Const.

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. ___ (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus submission made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps.123 The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. The case challenged the legality of Boumediene’s detention at the Guantanamo Bay military base as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined case were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007. On June 12, 2008, Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority holding that the prisoners had a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution and that the MCA was an unconstitutional suspension of that right.

Contents

Justice Kennedy's majority decision

The majority found that the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo and to persons designated as enemy combatants on that territory.4567 If Congress intends to suspend the right, an adequate substitute must offer the prisoner a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate he is held pursuant to an erroneous application or interpretation of relevant law, and the reviewing decision-making must have some ability to correct errors, to assess the sufficiency of the government's evidence, and to consider relevant exculpating evidence.4567 The court found that the petitioners had met their burden of establishing that Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 failed to provide an adequate substitute for habeas corpus.

Kennedy's majority opinion begins with an over-twenty page review of the history of habeas corpus in England from its roots in the due process clause of the Magna Carta of 1215 to the nineteenth century. Next, the opinion surveys American historical jurisprudence on the writ from 1789 until shortly after World War II, concentrating on the application of habeas corpus to aliens and territories outside of the borders of the United States that still fall under United States control, comparing these areas to the Channel Islands, where the writ did apply. While noting that habeas corpus did not apply in Scotland, a country under the control of the English crown (as the same monarch held the crown of Scotland), the Court distinguished that fact by stating that Scotland kept its unique system of laws even after union with England in 1707. The Court turned to Ireland for a more amenable historical example, pointing out that while it was nominally a sovereign country in the eighteenth century, English habeas corpus review did apply there since Ireland was under de facto English control and shared the English legal system.

The majority opinion rejected the government's argument comparing the habeas corpus restriction under the MCA to those affected by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which were ruled constitutional after a suspension clause challenge. The Court explained the restrictions of AEDPA on habeas review were not a complete suspension on habeas corpus, but simply procedural limitations, such as limiting the number of successive habeas petitions a prisoner can file, or mandating a one-year time limit for the filing of federal habeas review that begins when the prisoner's judgment and sentence become final. The main distinction between the MCA and AEDPA, the Court went on to explain, was that AEDPA applies in practice to those prisoners serving a sentence after having been tried in open court and whose sentences have been upheld on direct appeal, whereas the MCA suspends the application of the writ to those detainees whose guilt has not yet been legally determined.

The Court also concluded that the detainees are not required to exhaust review procedures in the court of appeals before pursuing habeas corpus actions in the district court. In the majority ruling Justice Kennedy called the Combatant Status Review Tribunals "inadequate".4567 He explained, “to hold that the political branches may switch the constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this court, 'say what the law is'.”8 The decision struck down section 7 of the MCA, but left intact the Detainee Treatment Act. In a concurring opinion, Justice Souter stressed the fact that the prisoners involved have been imprisoned for as many as six years. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia each wrote opinions for the four dissenters.9

Justice Souter's concurrence

Justice Souter's concurrence was joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. According to Justice Souter, "subsequent legislation eliminated the statutory habeas jurisdiction" over the claims brought by Guantanamo Bay detainees, "so that now there must be constitutionally based jurisdiction or none at all." 10 Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush, he added that the "“[a]pplication of the habeas statute to persons detained at [Guantanamo] is consistent with the historical reach of the writ of habeas corpus."11 Justice Souter pointed to the lengthy imprisonments, some of which have exceeded six years, as "a factor insufficiently appreciated by the dissents." 12 He thus denied the charge of the dissenters that the Court's majority "is precipitating the judiciary into reviewing claims that the military (subject to appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit) could handle within some reasonable period of time."13

Justice Scalia's dissent

Justice Scalia's dissent was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, and Thomas. Justice Scalia argued that "the procedures prescribed by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act provide the essential protections that habeas corpus guarantees; there has thus been no suspension of the writ, and no basis exists for judicial intervention beyond what the Act allows." 14 The commission of terrorist acts by former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay after their release "illustrates the incredible difficulty of assessing who is and who is not an enemy combatant in a foreign theater of operations where the environment does not lend itself to rigorous evidence collection." 15 A consequence of the Court's majority decision will be that "how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch [the judiciary] that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails." 16 A conflict between the Military Commissions Act and the Suspension Clause "arises only if the Suspension Clause preserves the privilege of the writ for aliens held by the United States military as enemy combatants at the base in Guantanamo Bay, located within the sovereign territory of Cuba." 17

Justice Scalia added that the Court's majority "admits that it cannot determine whether the writ historically extended to aliens held abroad, and it concedes (necessarily) that Guantanamo Bay lies outside the sovereign territory of the United States." 18 Justice Scalia pointed out that Johnson v. Eisentrager (where the Supreme Court decided that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a U.S.-administered German prison) "thus held—held beyond any doubt—that the Constitution does not ensure habeas for aliens held by the United States in areas over which our Government is not sovereign."19

According to Justice Scalia, the Court's majority's "analysis produces a crazy result: Whereas those convicted and sentenced to death for war crimes are without judicial remedy, all enemy combatants detained during a war, at least insofar as they are confined in an area away from the battlefield over which the United States exercises 'absolute and indefinite' control, may seek a writ of habeas corpus in federal court." Justice Scalia added that the Constitution allows suspension of the writ of habeas corpus only in cases of rebellion or invasion, both domestic disturbances; he asked "[i]f the extraterritorial scope of habeas turned on flexible, 'functional' considerations, as the [Court's majority] holds, why would the Constitution limit its suspension almost entirely to instances of domestic crisis?" 20

Chief Justice Roberts' dissent

Chief Justice Roberts' dissent took a far more tempered approach than that of Justice Scalia, focusing on whether the process afforded the Guantanamo detainees in the Detainee Treatment Act were an adequate substitute for the Habeas protections the Constitution guaranteed. By arguing in the affirmative, he implied that the issue of whether the detainees had any Suspension Clause rights was moot (since, if they did, he found that those rights were not violated anyway). This line of reasoning was arguably more in line with the plain reading of Johnson v. Eisentrager (which denied German prisoners of war Habeas rights primarily due to both practical logistical concerns and the determination that they had been afforded an adequate substitute: traditional military war crimes trials, which complied with the Geneva Conventions) than that of Justice Scalia, and also avoided the more controversial and complicated issue of whether the detainees were entitled to file Habeas petitions in the first place. However, the claim of the Chief Justice that the Court has struck down generous procedural protections afforded 'enemy combatants' and replaced them with a set of "shapeless" procedures to be defined by federal courts, has been described as disingenuous by some commentators.21

Background timeline

 This section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (December 2007)
Date Event
November 2001
January 20, 2002
2002, 2003, 2004
  • Friends and family of approximately 200 captives initiate habeas corpus submissions. These submissions work their way through the courts.
June 28, 2004
  • Rasul v. Bush is the first habeas corpus submission to reach the United States Supreme Court.
  • The Supreme Court dismisses the argument that the Naval Base at Guantanamo is beyond the reach of US law.
  • The Supreme Court rules that the Executive Branch lacks the authority to deny captives access to the US justice system, and that the captives did have the right to initiate habeas corpus submissions.
  • The Supreme Court rules that the Executive Branch was obliged to provide the captives with an opportunity to hear and attempt to refute whatever evidence had caused them to have been classified as "enemy combatants". As a result the Department of Defense created the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
December 31, 2005
  • The United States Congress passes the Detainee Treatment Act.
  • This act, sponsored by Senator John McCain, a former Prisoner of War who had been tortured in enemy custody, explicitly states that all captives held by the United States are protected against torture.
  • This act also restricted subsequent captives from initiating habeas corpus submissions.
  • Existing habeas corpus submissions remain in the system.
July 27, 2006
  • Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, another habeas corpus submission, reaches the US Supreme Court.
  • The Supreme Court rules that the Executive Branch lacks the Constitutional authority to set up military commissions to try captives taken in the "war on terror". It rules that this authority lies with the United States Congress.
  • The charges against the ten captives who had been charged were quashed.
October 17, 2006
  • The US Congress passes the Military Commissions Act, setting up Military Commissions similar to those that the Executive Branch had set up, retaining most of the features that had concerned critics.
    • The Commissions could still hear and consider "hearsay evidence".
    • Suspects would still be restricted from attempting to refute, or indeed even learning about, evidence against them that was classified as secret.
    • Evidence extracted from the suspect, or other witnesses, through the use of "extended interrogation techniques", would be permitted, so long as it was extracted prior to the Detainee Treatment Act in late 2005.
  • This act asserted that all outstanding habeas corpus submissions on behalf of the captives should be quashed.
February 20, 2007
  • A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals considers Lakhdar Boumediene's habeas corpus submission, and upheld the Congress's authority to quash the outstanding habeas corpus submissions through the Military Commission Act.22
April 2, 2007
  • After a petition for a review of the Circuit Court decision, the Supreme Court denied the petitioners’ writ of certiorari, thereby declining to hear the case at that time.
June 29, 2007
August 24, 2007
  • The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights file an Amicus brief on behalf of Boumediene and al Odah.2425
  • Over 20 supporting Amicus briefs were submitted simultaneously on behalf of Boumediene, including, the American Bar Association,26 retired military officers, retired federal judges, former U.S. diplomats, a sitting Republican U.S. Senator, law professors and legal historians, Canadian, British and European Parliamentarians, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), and domestic and international non-governmental organizations.27
October 9, 2007
  • The United States government submits its opposition briefs for Boumediene.27
November 13, 2007
  • The petitioner files its reply briefs.27
December 5, 2007
  • Arguments begin before U.S. Supreme Court.28
June 12, 2008
  • The Supreme Court announces its decision.29

Amicus briefs

The Supreme Court received over two dozen briefs of amicus curiae on the case, including some written strictly on the history and application of Habeas Corpus in England, Scotland, Hanover, Ireland, Canada, British-controlled territories, India, and the United States. Twenty-two amicus briefs were filed in support of the petitioners, Boumediene and Al Odah, and four were filed in support of the respondents, the Bush Administration.

Reception of the ruling

Conservative commentators have criticized the ruling, asserting that it "wantonly overruled the will of the people and Congress to suspend the habeas corpus rights of this dangerous and irredeemable class of criminal defendants".30

Legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin repulsed the conservative criticism and praised the Court's decision, advocating that it was "a great victory".31

Aftermath

On November 20, 2008, five Guantánamo detainees, including Boumediene, were ordered freed by Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington.32 The Court ordered the continued detention of a sixth, Belkacem Bensayah. The Court ruled: "To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court's obligation; the court must and will grant their petitions and order their release. This is a unique case. Few if any others will be factually like it. Nobody should be lulled into a false sense that all of the ... cases will look like this one."33343235

Detainees whose cases were consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush36

See also

References

  1. ^ Marjorie Cohn (February 27, 2007). "Why Boumediene Was Wrongly Decided". The Jurist. Retrieved on 2007-04-16.
  2. ^ "Al Odah v United States". Center for Constitutional Rights (April 27, 2005).
  3. ^ a b "Lakhdar Boumediene, et al. v. George W. Bush — docket". Oyez.org (August 24, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
  4. ^ a b c Mark Sherman (June 12, 2008). "High Court: Gitmo detainees have rights in court", Associated Press. Retrieved on 12 June 2008. "The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate."  mirror
  5. ^ a b c Mark Sherman (June 12, 2008). "Terror suspects can challenge detention: U.S. Supreme Court", Globe and Mail. Retrieved on 12 June 2008. 
  6. ^ a b c Mark Sherman (June 12, 2008). "High Court sides with Guantanamo detainees again", Montorey Herald. Retrieved on 12 June 2008. 
  7. ^ a b c James Oliphant (June 12, 2008). "Court backs Gitmo detainees", Baltimore Sun. Retrieved on 12 June 2008.  mirror
  8. ^ Stuck with Guantánamo (The Economist)
  9. ^ "Boumediene et al. v. Bush — No. 06–1195" (PDF), Supreme Court of the United States (June 12, 2008). Retrieved on 15 June 2008. 
  10. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 79. No. 06–1195. [1].
  11. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 80. No. 06–1195. [2].
  12. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 80. No. 06–1195. [3].
  13. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 80. No. 06–1195. [4].
  14. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 111. No. 06–1195. [5].
  15. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 113. No. 06–1195. [6].
  16. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 115. No. 06–1195. [7].
  17. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 115-6. No. 06–1195. [8].
  18. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 116. No. 06–1195. [9].
  19. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 119. No. 06–1195. [10].
  20. ^ US Supreme Court, Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., p. 132. No. 06–1195. [11].
  21. ^ http://www.fljs.org/Boumediene The Boumediene Decision: What Now?
  22. ^ "Lakhdat Boumedienne, detainee, Camp Delta, et al., appellants v. George W. Bush, President of the United Stated, et al., appellees" (PDF). United States Department of Justice (February 20, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
  23. ^ Jeannie Shawl (June 29, 2007). "Supreme Court to hear Guantanamo Bay detainee habeas cases", The Jurist. Retrieved on 6 November 2007. 
  24. ^ "Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States — Amicus brief". American Civil Liberties Union (August 24, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
  25. ^ "Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States — Amicus brief" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union (August 24, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
  26. ^ "Brief Amicus Curiae of the American Bar Association in Support of Petitioners" (PDF). American Bar Association (August 24, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-07.
  27. ^ a b c "Al Odah v. United States". Center for Constitutional Rights (January 2008). Retrieved on 2008-03-13.
  28. ^ Joan Biskupic (December 5, 2007). "Justices grill attorneys in Gitmo case hearings", USA Today. Retrieved on 5 December 2007. 
  29. ^ Ben Winograd (June 12, 2007). "Today’s Opinions", SCOTUSblog. Retrieved on 12 June 2008. 
  30. ^ Washington, Ellis. "Justices Gone Wild".
  31. ^ Dworkin, Ronald. "Why It Was a Great Victory".
  32. ^ a b Glaberson, William (2008-11-20). “Judge Declares Five Detainees Held Illegally”, New York Times. 
  33. ^ Judge Leon's order
  34. ^ Judge orders release of 5 terror suspects at Gitmo
  35. ^ US judge orders Algerians freed
  36. ^ "RESPONDENTS’ RESPONSE TO COURT’S AUGUST 7, 2006 ORDER" (PDF). United States Department of Defense (August 15, 2006). Retrieved on 2008-06-23.

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