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6-3 ruling on the Padilla case
A sharply split Supreme Court today rejected an appeal from the terrorism suspect Jose Padilla, leaving undecided for now deeper questions about the Bush administration's handling of detainees since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.Six justices were apparently persuaded, at least for the time being, that Mr. Padilla's appeal is moot, since he was transferred from military custody to a civilian jail several months ago and is to go on trial. The federal government indicted him last fall on terrorism charges that could bring him a sentence of life in prison if he is convicted. The administration had argued that since Mr. Padilla was going to get a trial, there was no need for the Supreme Court to rule on his appeal of a lower court order upholding the administration's authority to keep him in open-ended military detention as an enemy combatant. The six justices who agreed today to defer consideration of the finding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. But there were hints of an internal struggle among the justices. For one thing, several justices took the somewhat unusual step of issuing opinions related to the court's order not to take a case. More commonly, when refusing to take a case, the court simply issues an order without comment. The three justices who said the Supreme Court should have taken the case were Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Ginsburg said the underlying issues are "of profound importance to the nation," and that it was high time the court ruled on the executive branch's power to hold a United States citizen after declaring him an "enemy combatant." "Although the government has recently lodged charges against Padilla in a civilian court, nothing prevents the executive from returning to the road it earlier constructed and defended," Justice Ginsburg wrote. The case the court declined to hear is titled Padilla v. Hanft, No. 05-533. (C.T. Hanft is listed as the commander of the Navy brig at Charleston, S.C.) Even in voting not to hear the case, at least for now, Justice Kennedy wrote, for himself, the chief justice and Justice Stevens, "In light of the previous changes in his custody status and the fact that nearly four years have passed since he was first detained, Padilla, it must be acknowledged, has a continuing concern that his status might be altered again." "In the court of its supervision over Padilla's custody and trial, the district court will be obliged to afford him the protection, including the right to a speedy trial, guaranteed to all federal criminal defendants," Justice Kennedy wrote on behalf of himself and his two colleagues. And even though Justice Stevens found today that the Padilla case need not be considered now, he declared at an earlier stage in the case that "at stake in this case is nothing less than the essence of a free society." An American citizen and a former Chicago gang member, Mr. Padilla was arrested in May 2002 when he arrived at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. He was soon declared an "enemy combatant," and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that he had planned to detonate a radioactive bomb in the United States. The administration long resisted charging Mr. Padilla in a civilian court, preferring to hold him without charges in the Navy brig. Finally, last fall, the administration did bring charges, accusing him of being part of a terrorist cell. But those charges contained no mention of a radioactive-bomb plot. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a Richmond-based tribunal widely regarded as the most conservative of the circuits, ruled last September that President Bush had the authority to detain as an enemy combatant an American citizen who fought the United States on foreign soil. (The Pentagon has asserted that Mr. Padilla fought alongside Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan.) But the Fourth Circuit was still critical of the administration, voicing its suspicion that it had decided to move Mr. Padilla to civilian custody to evade a Supreme Court ruling on the president's authority in incarcerating "enemy combatants." The Supreme Court sidestepped a comprehensive ruling on government authority in January, when it granted the administration's request to transfer Mr. Padilla to civilian custody. Today's refusal by the justices to take Mr. Padilla's case means that the questions about government authority will have to wait for still another day. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-04-04 |
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