Center for Constitutional Rights Argues Guantánamo Due Process Case at SC Today

Update II: Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States arguments can be heard at: C-Span 3 11.15 (eastern), 10:15 (central).

Update: ScotusBlog will be (after-arguments)-blogging at 11:15 eastern time this a.m.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argues the Bush administration's nightmare case today, Al Odah v. United States, before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A companion case, Boumediene v. Bush, is also being argued today.

In Al Odah v. United States, the CCR is attempting to restore the right of accused inmates to challenge their detention and conditions of confinement, a long-cherished legal principle known as habeas corpus.

Numerous people held at Guantánamo Bay are believed to be innocent, and several have already been freed and sent back to their native countries.

But though the Bush administration retains a harsh and hostile view of civil liberties, even those inmates later found to be guilty deserve due process and access to an impartial court, according to liberty-supporting communities the world-over.

A decision against the Bush administration could put an end to indefinite detention and mandate an opportunity to be heard before an impartial court, a result that the Bush administration attempts to block.

As CCR webpage reads:

On June 28, 2004, the Supreme Court held in Rasul v. Bush, that the nearly-600 men imprisoned by the U.S. government in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba had a right of access to the federal courts, via habeas corpus and otherwise, to challenge their detention and conditions of confinement. Subsequent to this
decision, the habeas petitions were remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Immediately after the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul, CCR and cooperating counsel filed 11 new habeas petitions in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of over 70 detainees.

These cases eventually became the consolidated cases of Al Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush, the leading cases determining the significance of the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul, the rights of non-citizens to challenge the legality of their detention in an offshore U.S. military base, and the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Al Odah v. U.S. Amicus Briefs page

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