World's Worst Mother, Barb Tadych, Fed Innocent Son to Police Tree Jumpers

Billboard in Manitowoc Demands Pardon for
Wrongfully Convicted Brendan Dassey. Gov
Tony Evers (D) is vested with unlimited power
to grant clemency for any or no reason under
 Article V, Sec 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Innocent Man in Prison — Everyone Knows

Update Sept 2, 2021: Supporters of Brad Dassey, step son of the infamous Barb Tadych, in Manitowoc County say the world's worse mother still wants her step-son incarcerated for criticizing her alleged abuse.
Corruption County, Manitowoc County, is reportedly offering a fine against Dassey for writing the truth about his step-mother.
The deranged mother who offers her children to Manitowoc County police to be incarcerated wants step-son, Brad, in prison because he defeated Tadych in a civil suit on First Amendment grounds.
Tadych says an unenforceable retraining order, now vacated, may have been violated. The Manitowoc County District Attorney's office is rightwing and out-of-control and is helping Tadych, who looks to the office to help incarcerate her step-son.
The next plea hearing is scheduled for October 15, 2021 at 11:30 am.

--

Happy Mothers Day 2021

The innocent Brendan Dassey doesn't have a good mother.

One Barb Tadych, in fact, is one of the world's worst mothers.
 
No matter, today, we demand Gov Tony Evers (D) pardon the wrongfully convicted Brendan Dassey in the interest of justice.

Below is a repost of a piece from 2020.

Madison, Wisconsin — There is a special place in infamy for the bystander.

Brendan Dassey is in a Wisconsin prison; he is demonstrably innocent, but lives in a state with many perpetrators and more bystanders ensuring the wrongfully convicted remain behind bars.

So, Dassey works for his freedom, his life.

Dassey and Steven Avery are featured in the Emmy-winning documentary series, Making a Murderer.

The series resulted in a worldwide campaign of supporters who work for exoneration of two clearly innocent men.

No judge who has heard Dassey's case believes he is guilty.

No cop believes in Dassey's guilt, though no Wisconsin cop will state this publicly — ever.

Two Wisconsin cops worked in bad faith — Mark Wiegert (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)) — and ripped into a 16-year-old with an I.Q. of 70, and a severe language impairment, ultimately leading to the false conviction for first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault in 2007.

The Flight of Moloch - by William Blake
Happy Mothers Day, as we remember
Barb Tadych for delivering her son to
Wisconsin law enforcement.

Dassey was easy prey for Wiegert and Fassbender.

The prosecutor, Ken Kratz, who called himself a "dick" in 2016 (for real), self-described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder and multiple drug addictions, was driven from the district attorney's office in 2010 after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault came to light, after which he was driven from the Wisconsin legal profession altogether in 2019.

In the Dassey injustice, defense of Ken Kratz binds Democrats and Republicans here: A commitment to defend wrongful convictions at the hands of unethical and dishonest law enforcement.

Kratz' wife mocked and taunted Dassey's alleged conspirator, Steven Avery, in Feb 2019 in a tweet, now removed:

Writes Kratz:

Hey guys, Stevie’s still sitting in a jail cell 🙌🏻👏🏻🙌🏻👏🏻 #MakingAMurderer #MakingAMurderer2 Keep dragin ass, Kathleen. We love it! 😁😁

— Leah Kratz (@LeahMarieKK) February 16, 2019

One can garner much about the police culture of Wisconsin from this one tweet from an unhinged hick.

Consider this shared objective of destroying innocent life, a depraved devotion that cries out for constant challenge.

Last year a member of Dassey's defense team, Seth Waxman, advocating for a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, said, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

No word came from Evers before or after Oct 2019. 

Then, came Evers rejection of Dassey's bid for a pardon in Dec 2019, the news hidden in a press release just before Christmas, though Evers did manage to land a shot at Dassey, knowing he would get the news while retaining expectations about the holidays.

Ken Kratz and his ilk in the Manitowoc and Calumet County sheriff offices, have a friend they may not have counted on: Wisconsin's new Attorney General Josh Kaul (D).

Josh Kaul's office through co-counsels Mark Williams, Thomas Fallon and others is carrying on the crusade against Avery and Dassey with the same lack of ethics and regard for law that defined the tenure of Kaul's three predecessors in the Wisconsin Dept of Justice.

---

In the medical profession, practitioners are expected to carry out the spirit of an oath that demands doctors be healers, not destroyers.

Among police and prosecutors, there are no such strictures governing police conduct demanding no innocent be harmed or harassed, assaulted, defamed, arrested and imprisoned. In the Dassey and Avery cases, Wisconsin law enforcement destroyed evidence, then defended destroying evidence.

Among police, and its civilian collaborators, mission-critical imperatives are to protect police. The public is a free-fire zone and in warped police culture, the police cult perpetrates predictable brutality.

The type of individual, double-high authoritarian and anti-intellectual, who wants and self-selects to be a cop is capable of anything.

And all of law enforcement and politicians remain complicit in their silence.

Evers could help correct a grotesque injustice with a stroke of a pen today.

The decent who fight for Brendan Dassey's exoneration will never quit.

We are live in Manitowoc on the corner of Washington & 25th street, which poignantly is the same road as the courthouse where Brendan's life was snatched from him. Webcam footage doesn't do it "justice" - more photos to come #BringBrendanHome #FreeBrendanDassey pic.twitter.com/KMTyJx8Znq

— Tracy Keogh (@TracyKeogh2) December 7, 2020

Brendan Dassey Awaits Freedom in Wisconsin as Gov Tony Evers Cowers

Billboard in Manitowoc Demands Pardon for
Wrongfully Convicted Brendan Dassey. Gov
Tony Evers (D) is vested with unlimited power
to grant clemency for any or no reason under
 Article V, Sec 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Innocent Man in Prison — Everyone Knows, Afraid to Act

Madison, Wisconsin — There is a special place in infamy for the bystander.

Brendan Dassey is in a Wisconsin prison; he is demonstrably innocent, but lives in a state with many perpetrators and more bystanders ensuring the wrongfully convicted remain behind bars.

So, Dassey works for his freedom, his life.

Dassey and Steven Avery are featured in the Emmy-winning documentary series, Making a Murderer.

The series resulted in a worldwide campaign of supporters who work for exoneration of two clearly innocent men.

No judge who has heard Dassey's case believes he is guilty.

No cop believes in Dassey's guilt, though no Wisconsin cop will state this publicly — ever.

Two Wisconsin cops worked in bad faith — Mark Wiegert (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)) — and ripped into a 16-year-old with an I.Q. of 70, and a severe language impairment, ultimately leading to the false conviction for first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault in 2007.

Dassey was easy prey for Wiegert and Fassbender.

The prosecutor, Ken Kratz, who called himself a "dick" in 2016 (for real), self-described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder and multiple drug addictions, was driven from the district attorney's office in 2010 after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault came to light, after which he was driven from the Wisconsin legal profession altogether in 2019.

In the Dassey injustice, defense of Ken Kratz binds Democrats and Republicans here: A commitment to defend wrongful convictions at the hands of unethical and dishonest law enforcement.

Kratz' wife mocked and taunted Dassey's alleged conspirator, Steven Avery, in Feb 2019 in a tweet, now removed:

Writes Kratz:

Hey guys, Stevie’s still sitting in a jail cell 🙌🏻👏🏻🙌🏻👏🏻 #MakingAMurderer #MakingAMurderer2 Keep dragin ass, Kathleen. We love it! 😁😁

— Leah Kratz (@LeahMarieKK) February 16, 2019

One can garner much about the police culture of Wisconsin from this one tweet from an unhinged hick.

Consider this shared objective of destroying innocent life, a depraved devotion that cries out for constant challenge.

Last year a member of Dassey's defense team, Seth Waxman, advocating for a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, said, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

No word came from Evers before or after Oct 2019. 

Then, came Evers rejection of Dassey's bid for a pardon in Dec 2019, the news hidden in a press release just before Christmas, though Evers did manage to land a shot at Dassey, knowing he would get the news while retaining expectations about the holidays.

Ken Kratz and his ilk in the Manitowoc and Calumet County sheriff offices, have a friend they may not have counted on: Wisconsin's new Attorney General Josh Kaul (D).

Josh Kaul's office through co-counsels Mark Williams, Thomas Fallon and others is carrying on the crusade against Avery and Dassey with the same lack of ethics and regard for law that defined the tenure of Kaul's three predecessors in the Wisconsin Dept of Justice.

---

In the medical profession, practitioners are expected to carry out the spirit of an oath that demands doctors be healers, not destroyers.

Among police and prosecutors, there are no such strictures governing police conduct demanding no innocent be harmed or harassed, assaulted, defamed, arrested and imprisoned. In the Dassey and Avery cases, Wisconsin law enforcement destroyed evidence, then defended destroying evidence.

Among police, and its civilian collaborators, mission-critical imperatives are to protect police. The public is a free-fire zone and in warped police culture, the police cult perpetrates predictable brutality.

The type of individual, double-high authoritarian and anti-intellectual, who wants and self-selects to be a cop is capable of anything.

And all of law enforcement and politicians remain complicit in their silence.

Evers could help correct a grotesque injustice with a stroke of a pen today.

The decent who fight for Brendan Dassey's exoneration will never quit.

We are live in Manitowoc on the corner of Washington & 25th street, which poignantly is the same road as the courthouse where Brendan's life was snatched from him. Webcam footage doesn't do it "justice" - more photos to come #BringBrendanHome #FreeBrendanDassey pic.twitter.com/KMTyJx8Znq

— Tracy Keogh (@TracyKeogh2) December 7, 2020

Innocent Brendan Dassey Waits in Wisconsin Prison — Wrongfully Convicted, Wrongfully Prosecuted

Corrupt Wisconsin police targeted the innocent to tragic
consequence. Image - Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz
is a major anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and
never recovered from the death of her son in WW I.

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
—Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist (1898–1969)

Madison, Wisconsin—It's comforting to suppose a gentle ethic resides in Wisconsin, a decency standing ready to challenge betrayal such as defamation, child molestation, corruption, false imprisonment, torture and destruction of life.

This belief defends a lie.

This lie is perhaps the most striking message of the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docu series (Netflix, Inc), a work that holds Wisconsin up to the world and says, 'look what they have done' to a challenged, 16-year-old Brendan Dassey and an exonerated Steven Avery.

So, it is no surprise that it took a handful of out-of-state attorneys and journalists to give Messrs. Dassey and Avery hope  that exoneration is near.

One of those jurists is Seth Waxman, 41st Solicitor General of the United States (1997–2001).

A premier advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court the last 40 years, Waxman is defined more by his decency than his prominence as a litigator. See for example Waxman's work to preserve habeas corpus in 2007, (Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196)), (Center for Constitutional Rights).

Waxman appears to be animated by some core beliefs: That crucifixion of our fellows is wrong, and to bear witness is to incur an obligation to act, to think, to challenge and demand justification.

Few in the State Bar of Wisconsin seem to be animated by such concern — ethics. Rather, careerism and moral numbness define their collective passivity.

Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Advocating a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019, Waxman said:

I have been a practicing lawyer since 1977. As part of my pro bono practice, in addition to representing juveniles in criminal justice proceedings, I represent death row inmates. Other than the almost seven years that I was in the Justice Dept, I've always had at least one client facing execution for a capital crime. I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent.

So, why Waxman's involvement and not the involvement or at least support of 100s of Wisconsin attorneys?

I don't pretend to know what is in Seth Waxman's heart. But I have seen hints.

Waxman made some comments at the Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics, April 10, 2018, explaining what animates his 1,000s of hours of pro bono work and legal advocacy since he became an attorney.

Waxman recalled attorney John Joseph Cassidy, a "cheerful and very engaged Roman Catholic," who sat with him in 1977, and asked:

'Why do you think that [religious] Jews and Jesuits are so drawn to the law?'

And, at the time, I didn't think I knew any Jesuits.

He (senior partner John Joseph Cassidy) said, that he was convinced that Jews and Jesuits excelled at the law because they both come from religious traditions steeped in wrestling with the meaning and application of God's law — a muscular intellectual engagement with religious texts.

And it is true over the course of my career, it' s actually impossible to count the number of times that the terms, Talmudic and Jesuitical, have been used to characterize particularly detailed discussions about how a specific legal principle should be interpreted or applied.

Thus, one can conclude, Waxman believes a religious and moral sensibility guides the role of lawyers during a time of lawlessness in the greater society.

I'm grateful for Seth Waxman's work for the innocent.

And to my many friends who are members of the Wisconsin Bar, I ask today for them to listen at some point to the words of Seth Waxman advocating for the innocent, video below.

To help with the Dassey commutation and pardon petition now before Gov Evers, see the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Bluhm Legal Clinic, Wrongful Convictions of Youth.

Specifically, all Wisconsin citizens are urged to write a letter in support of Brendan Dassey's petition for a pardon or commutation.

Letter should be addressed to:

Governor Tony Evers
115 East
State Capitol
Madison, WI 53702

Seth Waxman advocating for clemency for Brendan Dassey on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. Video is below; [See also Bring Brendan Home.]:

Wisconsin Gov Evers Hides from Truth on Brendan Dassey Clemency — Rejection in Unsigned Form Letter

Corrupt Wisconsin police targeted the innocent to tragic
consequence. Image - Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz
is a major anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and
never recovered from the death of her son in WW I.

Dassey Pardon Petition Remains before Tony Evers

Madison, Wisconsin — News that Gov Tony Evers' (D) Pardon Board declined to review the Brendan Dassey pardon and commutation petition does not surprise, (AP).

This is a political decision, defending the wrongful conviction of an innocent Wisconsin man, convicted as a child, and preyed upon by the tree jumpers populating Wisconsin law enforcement, (see Under the Hood: Brendan Dassey, Language Impairments, and Judicial Ignorance, (full paper) LaVigne and Miles).

The advisory Board's decision was released in a form letter on the Friday before Christmas, the time to conceal the bad work of Wisconsin politicians.

No elected politician has ever publicly taken the side of the exonerated and the wrongfully convicted in Wisconsin. Not once.

Consider that, in Wisconsin of all places and to be clear the worst place to be black, standing up and speaking the truth is an exercise so dreaded by the denizens of public office, that they would rather see innocent lives destroyed than to advocate for their liberty.

Neither has any daily newspaper advocated for the freedom of the innocent.

Seth Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said this year that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Gov Evers maintains the explicit state Constitutional authority and right to summarily reject the Board's decision and grant Mr. Dassey his immediate freedom with a stroke of a pen for any or no reason, (Rolling Stone).

This action would entail using capacities that to date Evers has not displayed — intellectual honesty, knowledge of Wisconsin law enforcement, and to the worst of Evers' personal defects, a moral backbone and sensibility to the call of social justice.

Put yourself in the place of Tony Evers, what would you do? Defend the innocent and call out the guilty, or hide?

From the Wrongful Conviction Podcast and Jason Flom:

Dassey Team Response to Pardon Board Clemency Denial

On behalf of Brendan’s lawyers, Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin, we share the following statement:

Today, only five days before Christmas, the Wisconsin Pardon Advisory Board chose to reject Brendan Dassey’s clemency petition in an unsigned form letter, without reviewing the petition on the merits.

Had the Board reviewed Brendan’s petition on the merits, it would have seen what more than 250 national experts -- and millions of ordinary people around the globe – see: a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Now 30 years old, Brendan Dassey has been imprisoned for thirteen years based only on a false confession that is inconsistent with the known facts of the case, has been disproven by DNA and forensic evidence, and was immediately recanted. That false confession was the result of a deeply flawed interrogation of a 16-year-old special education student with profound learning disabilities.

Although the Pardon Advisory Board has stated that it will not consider commutations, Governor Evers is not bound by those rules.  He does have the power to issue commutations under the Wisconsin Constitution and should do so when, as here, courts fail to deliver justice.  Our partners around the country stand ready to work with the Governor to develop an appropriate process for the review of commutation petitions.

In the meantime, we will continue to work, respectfully but relentlessly, towards the day when this Governor recognizes in Brendan Dassey the gentle, cheerful, and kind human being whom we have known for twelve years.  A good teacher never forgets his most vulnerable students; a good Governor never forgets his most vulnerable citizens.

We spoke to Brendan this morning. While the Board’s choice today has caused pain to many around the globe, Brendan wishes to express his profound gratitude – and his Christmas wishes -- to his many supporters.  He is not giving up hope, and neither are we.

Now more than ever, we need your help.  If you’d like to support our continuing effort to free Brendan, please consider doing the following two things:

(1)Re-sign the petition to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers at bringbrendanhome.org and add your request that he “review the petition on the merits.”

(2)Send Brendan a letter of support and hope.  Your words of encouragement mean more to him than anything else.  You can address the letter to Brendan Dassey, #516985, Oshkosh Correctional Institution, PO Box 3310, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3310, U.S.A.

Thank you for standing with us.

Happy holidays and keep on fighting.

Signed,

The team at Wrongful Conviction

Wisconsin Souls Betray the Innocent — Thanksgiving 2019

Corrupt Wisconsin police targeted the innocent to tragic
consequence. Image - Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz
is a major anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and
never recovered from the death of her son in WW I.

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
—Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist (1898–1969)

Madison, Wisconsin—It's comforting to suppose a gentle ethic resides in Wisconsin, a decency standing ready to challenge betrayal such as defamation, child molestation, corruption, false imprisonment, torture and destruction of life.

This belief defends a lie.

This lie is perhaps the most striking message of the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docu series (Netflix, Inc), a work that holds Wisconsin up to the world and says, 'look what they have done' to a challenged 16-year-old Brendan Dassey and an exonerated Steven Avery.

So, it is no surprise that it took a handful of out-of-state attorneys and journalists to give Messrs. Dassey and Avery hope, even cautions optimism, that exoneration is near.

One of those jurists is Seth Waxman, 41st Solicitor General of the United States (1997–2001).

A premier advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court the last 40 years, Waxman is defined more by his decency than his prominence as a litigator. See for example Waxman's work to preserve habeas corpus in 2007, (Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196)), (Center for Constitutional Rights).

Waxman appears to be animated by some core beliefs: That crucifixion of our fellows is wrong, and to bear witness is to incur an obligation to act, to think, to challenge and demand justification.

Few in the State Bar of Wisconsin seem to be animated by such concern — ethics. Rather, careerism and moral numbness define their collective passivity.

Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Advocating a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019, Waxman said:

I have been a practicing lawyer since 1977. As part of my pro bono practice, in addition to representing juveniles in criminal justice proceedings, I represent death row inmates. Other than the almost seven years that I was in the Justice Dept, I've always had at least one client facing execution for a capital crime. I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent.

So, why Waxman's involvement and not the involvement or at least support of 100s of Wisconsin attorneys?

I don't pretend to know what is in Seth Waxman's heart. But I have seen hints.

Waxman made some comments at the Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics, April 10, 2018, explaining what animates his 1,000s of hours of pro bono work and legal advocacy since he became an attorney.

Waxman recalled attorney John Joseph Cassidy, a "cheerful and very engaged Roman Catholic," who sat with him in 1977, and asked:

'Why do you think that [religious] Jews and Jesuits are so drawn to the law?'

And, at the time, I didn't think I knew any Jesuits.

He (senior partner John Joseph Cassidy) said, that he was convinced that Jews and Jesuits excelled at the law because they both come from religious traditions steeped in wrestling with the meaning and application of God's law — a muscular intellectual engagement with religious texts.

And it is true over the course of my career, it' s actually impossible to count the number of times that the terms, Talmudic and Jesuitical, have been used to characterize particularly detailed discussions about how a specific legal principle should be interpreted or applied.

Thus, one can conclude, Waxman believes a religious and moral sensibility guides the role of lawyers during a time of lawlessness in the greater society.

I'm grateful for Seth Waxman's work for the innocent this Thanksgiving Day.

And to my many friends who are members of the Wisconsin Bar, I ask today for them to listen at some point to the words of Seth Waxman advocating for the innocent, video below.

To help with the Dassey commutation and pardon petition now before Gov Evers, see the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Bluhm Legal Clinic, Wrongful Convictions of Youth.

Specifically, all Wisconsin citizens are urged to write a letter in support of Brendan Dassey's petition for a pardon or commutation.

Letter should be addressed to:

Governor Tony Evers
115 East
State Capitol
Madison, WI 53702

Seth Waxman advocating for clemency for Brendan Dassey on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. Video is below; [See also Bring Brendan Home.]:

I went to visit Brendan last night & he wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving..
Here a little note he wrote to everyone. pic.twitter.com/hrgYLimGXH

— Carla Chase (@averydassey) November 27, 2019

CCR on Habeas Corpus for Guantanamo Bay Detainees

From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

Guantánamo Attorneys to Justices: Restore the Constitution

Combined Cases Will Determine Legal Fate of Men and Boys Held at Offshore Detention Center

NELL MCGARITY

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a landmark human rights case with significant implications for the separation of powers, the Supreme Court today heard a challenge brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel to the legality of Guantánamo Bay detentions.

This case will decide whether federal courts have any say in checking the power of the Executive Branch to hold men at Guantanamo indefinitely and outside of the law.

“All have been confined at Guantanamo for almost 6 years yet not one has had meaningful notice of the factual grounds of their detention,” said former Solicitor General Seth Waxman in his oral arguments.

Thirty-six of the 37 detainees involved in this suit have been in detention for more than five years without ever having faced formal charges or having a fair hearing before a civilian court.

Attorneys for the detainees—supported by dozens of former federal officials and legal experts—are asking the court to restore the right to habeas corpus—the basic right to challenge the legality of their detention—to the men and boys held at the offshore prison.

“We have been back and forth in the courts as the government has tried one maneuver after another to avoid the Supreme Court’s past rulings – that the detainees are entitled to challenge their detention in U.S. courts,” said Vincent Warren, executive director of CCR, which has organized legal representation for Guantánamo detainees since the prison opened in January 2002. “We hope the Supreme Court will end this travesty once and for all and provide full, fair and prompt hearings, which are the very foundation of a free society.”

The Court ruled in favor of the detainees in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006). Following the Hamdan decision, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which has kept Guantanamo prisoners in legal limbo.

“The precedent set in past Guantanamo Supreme Court cases—that every person detained has the right to a fair hearing, including those jailed at the detention center for almost six years—is a necessity for any country calling itself a nation under law,” CCR President Michael Ratner said.

The Court received more than two dozen amicus curiae (“friend of the Court”) briefs on behalf of the men and boys held at Guantánamo. Former military officials and diplomats, former Congressmen of both parties and a bipartisan group of non-government organizations showed their support of granting habeas rights.

More information:
CCR lawyers were the first civilian attorneys to visit clients at Guantánamo, in 2004, and have been petitioning on behalf of the men and boys there since the detention center opened six years ago. After winning the Rasul case in 2004, CCR coordinated the largest ever coalition of pro bono lawyers to defend the prisoners there, ensuring that nearly all have been represented.

CCR’s legal team comprises leading experts on human rights and related legal issues. They have spoken at various prestigious law schools, been interviewed on numerous national and local radio programs and have recently penned an op-ed that ran in the Washington Post on being the first attorneys ever to visit a former CIA “ghost” detainee.

CCR’s “Beyond Guantánamo” campaign is working to bring national awareness to the issues surrounding this landmark case. Notably, television ads are running this week on CNN and MSNBC, as well as a print ad in the Wall Street Journal. CCR’s ad was rejected, though, by the Fox News Channel. The “Beyond Guantánamo” campaign has also helped tens of thousands of people to send the President an early holiday present—a copy of the Constitution.

Important note:
CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren, CCR President Michael Ratner and leading CCR staff attorneys are available for both live and taped interviews on Dec. 5 and 6.

Vincent Warren became executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights 2006. He spent seven years as national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, where he led national constitutional and impact litigation to advance civil rights and civil liberties and coordinated the legal efforts to respond to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and served as co-counsel in Rasul v. Bush. Ratner is a world-renowned legal advocate who has taught at both the Columbia and Yale law schools. For more than three decades, he has represented individuals who have suffered injustice the world over—from East Timor and the South Bronx to Haiti and Guatemala. Last year, the National Law Journal named Ratner one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States and is the winner of this year’s Nation/Puffin Award. Ratner is the author of several books, including Guantánamo: What the World Should Know and the forthcoming The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld.

Gitanjali Gutierrez has been working on legal challenges to Guantanamo since 2003 and was a member of the legal team that argued the first Guantanamo case, Rasul v. Bush, before the Supreme Court in 2004. Following CCR's victory in Rasul, Gita was the first civilian attorney to meet with clients at the base and currently travels regularly to the detention center for client meetings. Last month, she became the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee.”

Shayana Kadidal is senior managing attorney of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at CCR. In addition to supervising the Guantanamo litigation, he also works on CCR’s major case on the illegal NSA domestic spying program, CCR v. Bush, as well as the Center’s Patriot Act case, and has testified before Congress on the material witness statute.

Wells Dixon works on the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at CCR. His clients include Uighur prisoners cleared for release in 2003, a U. N.-mandate refugee from Somalia and former Baltimore-area resident Majid Khan, who was imprisoned in secret CIA “black sites” for more than three years before he was transferred to Guantanamo in Sept. 2006.
AL ODAH/BOUMEDIENE LEGAL ARGUMENT AND IMPLICATIONS

What the Supreme Court will consider in Al Odah v. United States:

1. Did the D.C. Circuit err in relying again on Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950), to dismiss these petitions and to hold that Petitioners have no common law right to habeas protected by the Suspension Clause and no constitutional rights whatsoever, despite this Court’s ruling in Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), that these Petitioners are in a fundamentally different position from those in Eisentrager, that their access to the writ is consistent with the historical reach of the writ at common law, and that they are confined within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States?

2. Given that the Court in Rasul concluded that the writ at common law would have extended to persons detained at Guantanamo, did the D.C. Circuit err in holding that Petitioners’ right to the writ was not protected by the Suspension Clause because they supposedly would not have been entitled to the writ at common law?

3. Are Petitioners, who have been detained without charge or trial for more than five years in the exclusive custody of the United States at Guantanamo, a territory under the plenary and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, entitled to the protection of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law and of the Geneva Conventions?

4. Should section 7(b) of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which does not explicitly mention habeas corpus, be construed to eliminate the courts’ jurisdiction over Petitioners’ pending habeas cases, thereby creating serious constitutional issues?

What the Supreme Court will consider in Boumediene v. Bush:

1. Whether the Military Commissions Act of 2006 validly stripped federal court jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions filed by foreign citizens imprisoned indefinitely at the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay.

2. Whether Petitioners’ habeas corpus petitions, which establish that the United States government has imprisoned Petitioners for over five years, demonstrate unlawful confinement requiring the grant of habeas relief or, at least, a hearing on the merits.

Analysis on the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Argument

Petitioners in Al Odah argue that the precedent set by the Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush in 2004 precludes the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ conclusion that Guantanamo detainees have no common law right to habeas corpus protected by the Suspension Clause. The Suspension Clause, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, provides that habeas corpus, such as it existed at common law, may be suspended by Congress only in cases of “rebellion or invasion.”

Furthermore, Petitioners challenge the D.C. Circuit’s reliance on Johnson v. Eisentrager to dismiss the detainee habeas corpus petitions, given that in Rasul, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Petitioners are differently situated to those in Eisentrager, and are confined within an area in the exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Petitioners argue further that they are entitled to the writ of habeas corpus at common law, such as it existed historically, outside the definitions of the federal habeas statute, and thus are protected from any unlawful suspension of habeas by the Suspension Clause.

In addition, Petitioners argue that they are entitled to Fifth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution to not be deprived of liberty without due process of law, and to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The Petitioners have been detained without a judicial hearing for well over five years, within an area under the exclusive control and jurisdiction of the United States. Petitioners further argue that any substitute procedures – and the review of those substitute procedures by the D.C. Circuit Court – that have been created are so limited and narrowly defined, as well as fraught with error – are no substitute for habeas corpus and due process.

Thus, Petitioners argue, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 cannot have validly and Constitutionally stripped Petitioners of their right to the writ of habeas corpus at common law.

In response, the Executive argues that “as aliens held outside the sovereign territory of the United States, [the detainees] enjoy no rights under the Suspension Clause. Second, even if they could invoke the Suspension Clause, it would not entitle them to relief because they seek an expansion of the writ well beyond its historic scope. And third, the [Detainee Treatment Act] in any event provides an adequate alternative to any habeas rights [these detainees] may have.”

In reality, Petitioners have been held for nearly six years at a U.S. Naval Base, in a territory under the exclusive control and jurisdiction of the United States, without any judicial process or hearing, despite the clear mandate of the Rasul court. They are not citizens of enemy nations, but citizens of our closest allies who maintain that they are innocent of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, they have been denied any meaningful process for a period that now stretches to six years – and threatens to continue indefinitely.

Two military officers who sat on Combatant Status Review Tribunals have stated in affidavits that the panels relied on shoddy evidence in order to reach preordained results -- no substitute for habeas corpus at law.
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The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
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Supreme Court Membership and Restoration of Habeas Corpus for Guantanamo Bay Detainees

Update II: Read Jon Wiener's Arguing About Gitmo in The Nation.

Update: The transcript of today’s consolidated argument in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196) is available at U.S. Oral Arguments Transcripts.

-End of delayed C-Span 3 stream of oral arguments -

Facing hostile questioning from Justices Scalia, Roberts and Alito, attorney Seth Waxman, seeking habeas corpus protections for Guantanamo Bay detainees ran into what appears as an authoritarian block representing the ideology of the George W. Bush administration.

Waxman is seeking for the accused access to the U.S. federal courts, via habeas corpus and other means, to challenge the detention and conditions of confinement of the accused.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, arguing for the Bush administration, faced skeptical and aggressive questioning from Justices Stevens, Souter, Breyer ("Habeas (writs) are supposed to be speedy"), and Ginsberg.

Clement seeks the Court to rule that the Bush administration may deny habeas corpus based on reasons of geographical jurisdiction, lack of POW status of detainees, and common and case law deference to the Executive branch in times of war.

Clement has also argued that the Congress and Executive branch have already spoken on the matter.

Justice Kennedy asked questions about the applicability of past decisions and the authority of a given U.S. Court of Appeals Court to declare the Military Commissions Act unconstitutional, and also raised the possibility of a lower federal court reviewing the issue.

Kennedy also asked Clement what appeared to be a skeptical question on the administrative procedures implementing the Military Commissions Act (MCA) in light of the detainees having now had no liberty for six years, and Clement's comment that: " ... the courts -- the lower courts should be instructed to with due cognizance for the fact these individuals have been detained six years and this is the process that has been provided in order to decide whether or not that continuing custody is lawful, they should expedite this to the greatest extent possible."

Asked Kennedy, "How can we fit your position when we have no jurisdiction here?", as the Congress and Executive branches have already spoken on the matter with the enactment of the MCA which bars federal courts from hearing detainee appeals, in what appears to be one very weak aspect of the Bush administration's case.

The capacity of the Congress and Executive branch to simply declare that the U.S. Court system may not rule on a legislative act flies in the face of centuries of American jurisprudence.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in keeping with his habits during oral arguments and what some observers see as a lack of legal curiosity, asked not a single question in this possible landmark case.

In rebuttal, Waxman said the traditional writ of habeas corpus does apply to situations of executive detention like what Bush has done at Guantanamo Bay, and that military tribunals are "inadequate".

Based on the ideologies in past decisions, here's a wild guess on how the Justices will rule:

John Paul Stevens (1975) – Will vote to restore ancient and fundamental protection of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees, per the U.S. Constitution and international law.

Antonin Scalia (1986) – Will vote to uphold Bush administration military tribunals, with no habeas corpus protections.

Anthony M. Kennedy (1988) – ?

David H. Souter (1990) – Will vote to restore ancient and fundamental protection of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees, per the U.S. Constitution and international law.

Clarence Thomas (1991) – Will vote to uphold Bush administration military tribunals, with no habeas corpus protections.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993) – Will vote to restore ancient and fundamental protection of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees, per the U.S. Constitution and international law.

Stephen G. Breyer (1994) – Will vote to restore ancient and fundamental protection of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees, per the U.S. Constitution and international law.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts (2005) – Will vote to uphold Bush administration military tribunals, with no habeas corpus protections.

Samuel A. Alito, Jr. (2006) – Will vote to uphold Bush administration military tribunals, with no habeas corpus protections.

Al Odah v. U.S. Amicus Briefs page

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