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| U.S.-Born 'Combatant' Denied Counsel by Appeals Court |
| 2002-07-15 |
| A U.S.-born ''enemy combatant'' captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan may be held by the military without charges or access to legal counsel, a federal appeals court ruled. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, reversed a lower court's order that the Defense Department give Yaser Hamdi unmonitored access to a public defender, finding the trial judge made the decision without ''adequately considering the implications'' on U.S. intelligence gathering. ''Our Constitution's commitment of the conduct of war to the political branches of American government requires the court's respect at every step,'' Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote for the three-judge panel, which remanded the case to the trial court for reconsideration with instructions to weigh ''the most cautious procedures first.'' So there. The books are chock full of precedents. The only reason this mess ever went into a court was because so few people pay any attention to precedents anymore. It's a continuously reinvented wheel that the defense lawyers are hoping will come out square this time. The appellate panel's unanimous decision in a case pitting concerns about civil liberties against the government's effort to wage an unconventional war didn't go as far as the Defense Department wanted. The judges said it would be ''premature'' to endorse the argument that the courts can't ''second-guess'' the military's designation of enemy combatants. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |