Rendering the Justices
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the president can order the indefinite military detention of people living in the United States. Since the court’s conservative majority has been friendly to Bush administration claims of extraordinary executive powers, we can probably expect the worst.
When Congress passed the Non-Detention Act in 1971, it specified: “No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.” But the Bush administration claimed (in the Yaser Hamdi case) that this restriction applies only to detentions by the attorney general, not by the president or by military authorities. In the Jose Padilla case, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit backed the president – despite protests by Janet Reno and by a host of civil liberties groups who have called such detentions illegal.
So let’s say the Supreme Court agrees in March with the 4th Circuit and the Bush administration. But in the meantime, we’ve changed presidents.
Wouldn’t that mean that the new president would have the power to indefinitely detain the five conservative Justices — along with the 4th Circuit Justices and the last three Attorneys General — without any need to present evidence (classified, you know) or to bring charges?
Let’s see now — we know they were plotting to scuttle the Constitution — Scalia to Syria, Thomas to Egypt … they’ll talk all right.
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
If Clarence Thomas actually talks, it’ll be about the first words he’s uttered since he’s been on the bench … which, at this point, has been 17 achingly tedious, painful and lawless years. (One wonders if constitutional law was an elective when he attended law school.) The nice thing about being a conservative justice on this court is that you aren’t burdened by any of the legal inconveniences of the constitution. You can simply ignore them, or tell litigants that they mean whatever you say they mean and the hell with you if you think otherwise. This court has actually done us a favor, having placed into clear relief the judicial version of high treason. Now, at least, we know what it looks like.
Comment by Steve Alber — December 8, 2008 @ 11:23 am
“Gitmo Justice” Now doesn’t that a have a nice ring to it. And, it goes without saying, they would be received with open arms by the currect occupants.
Comment by Mrs D. — December 8, 2008 @ 11:47 am
“Gitmo justice” does indeed have a ring to it. It could replace “kangaroo court” in the world of English as she is spoken.
As for Clarence Thomas, he may be the worst of all time, and it was Arlen Specter — he of unfailingly noble words and unfailingly foul deeds — who piloted the nomination through. He gets rendered to the dungeon under Anita Hill’s house.
Comment by Al — December 8, 2008 @ 4:19 pm