Category: Supreme Court

October 29, 2008

What About Constitutional Powers?

Institute for Public Accuracy915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org___________________________________________________ Wednesday, October 29, 2008 What About Constitutional Powers? Two Views MARJORIE COHN, Libertad48@san.rr.com, http://www.marjoriecohn.comCohn is the president of the National Lawyers Guild, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the author of “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has… Read more »

June 20, 2008

Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent

To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: “At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield.” It turns out that statement is false. According to… Read more »

December 4, 2007

Guantánamo Detainees’ Fate at Stake in Boumediene

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in Boumediene v. Bush. Most of the 34 detainees whose fate hangs in the balance in this case were brought to Guantánamo after being picked up by bounty hunters or tribesmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the Bush administration has fought hard to keep them away from… Read more »

November 25, 2007

Remembering Victor Rabinowitz: Legal Giant of the Left

On November 16, 2007, Victor Rabinowitz, one of the giants of the legal profession and a tireless fighter for social justice, died at the age of 96. One of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild 70 years ago, Victor defended unpopular clients when other lawyers were afraid to touch them. During the McCarthy period,… Read more »

May 31, 2007

The Unitary King George

As the nation focused on whether Congress would exercise its constitutional duty to cut funding for the war, Bush quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell that went virtually unnoticed by the corporate media. The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the… Read more »

April 3, 2007

Coming Up Short on Habeas for Detainees

The Bush administration has stopped the Supreme Court from giving the Guantánamo detainees their day in court – at least for now. In Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, 45 men challenged the constitutionality of the habeas corpus-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last year. On Monday Justices… Read more »

February 27, 2007

Why Boumediene Was Wrongly Decided

Last week, in Boumediene v. Bush, two judges on a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that strips the rights of all Guantánamo detainees to have their habeas corpus petitions heard by U.S. federal courts. If that decision is left to stand,… Read more »

October 5, 2006

Rounding Up U.S. Citizens

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, “unlawful enemy combatants.” Bush… Read more »

September 8, 2006

Bush Fears War Crimes Prosecution, Impeachment

With great fanfare, George W. Bush announced to a group of carefully selected 9/11 families yesterday that he had finally decided to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other alleged terrorists to Guantánamo Bay, where they will be tried in military commissions. After nearly 5 years of interrogating these men, why did Bush choose this… Read more »