As already diaried by
firedoglake, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has denied the habeas corpus petitions of seven Guantanamo Bay detainees.
According to the WaPo:
In a 34-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said that Congress has granted President Bush the authority to detain foreign enemy combatants outside the United States for the duration of the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, and that the courts have little power to review the conditions under which such prisoners are held. "While a state of war does not give the President a 'blank check,' " Leon wrote, "and the courts must have some role when individual liberty is at stake, any role must be limited when, as here, there is an ongoing armed conflict and the individuals challenging their detention are non-resident aliens."
This decision is the first blow in a war going on at the Federal Courthouse between Leon, a Bush appointee, and Joyce Hens Green, a Carter appointee, who also has several Gitmo cases pending in front of her. My insider's view below the fold.
Among the many other things I get to do in Washington, one of them is occasionally reporting proceedings in U.S. District Court here. I've worked for both Leon and Green, a senior judge named to the bench by Carter in 1979, who had been in poor health for some years prior to the cases being assigned to her. (Senior judges are essentially retired judges, who take cases as they desire, usually to lessen the workload of the Federal courts).
Apparently, her health improved at just the time that the Supreme Court handed down its rulings in Rasul and Hamdi, and the bulk of the Guantanamo habeas petitions were assigned to her (somewhat surprisingly) by Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan, a Reagan appointee. However, prior to her return, seven of the cases had already been assigned to Leon.
I've never reported the proceedings of any of the Guantanamo hearings, but the walls do have ears at the Courthouse just as much as (perhaps more than) anywhere else, and the word among the law clerks there (who, of course, chatter like most midtwenties folks do; and since they're lawyers, they chatter more than most) is that open warfare has broken out between Leon and Green.
Green is preparing to issue an altogether different ruling in her cases, perhaps even one that frees a significant number of the detainees whose habeas petitions are before her. The original plan, as envisioned by the Chief Judge, Thomas Hogan, was that Leon and Green would work together on these cases and come up with a joint ruling on the appropriate points of law.
Leon's ruling reads a lot like Clarence Thomas' dissents in both Hamdi and Rasul and seems to contain references to points of law that were explicitly rejected by the majority opinions in both cases. Green's opinion, no doubt, because she is an experienced judge (a senior judge, in fact) who is seldom reversed, will refer strategically to the majority opinion in Rasul.
Predictably, the cases will end up back in the Supreme Court's lap in any case, probably after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is packed with appointees from the last three Republican presidents and often overrules the more liberal judges (Leon is an exception) of its only subordinate district court, upholds Leon.
But speaking of laps, it's clear from this decision that Leon (who reminds me of Jabba the Hut, by the way...see the picture in his bio) is little more than a lap dog for Bush.
More decisions like this one can be expected if we lose the battle on judicial filibusters in the Senate.