Kennedy Doesn’t Tip Hand in Gitmo Arguments
The U.S. Supreme Court justice who is considered the pivotal vote in a suit by Guantanamo detainees didn’t signal how he will rule during oral arguments today.
The court is considering whether the detainees have a constitutional right to challenge their confinement through federal habeas actions, and if so, whether the military commissions created to hear the cases are an adequate substitute.
Swing Justice Anthony M. Kennedy “directed questions at both sides and didn’t tip his hand,” Bloomberg news reports. At one point he suggested sending the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, who argued for the detainees, “underwent a barrage of questions” from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia, the Associated Press reports.
Waxman argued that “after six years of imprisonment without meaningful review, it is time for a court to decide the legality” of the detainees’ confinement.
While conservative justices focused on whether the detainees had a right to habeas, most of the other justices instead focused on the remedies available if detainees do have a right, SCOTUSblog reports.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that the court could rule the D.C. Circuit erred when it found there was no constitutional right to habeas, but send the case back to the appeals court for a ruling on the adequacy of the military commissions.
As the court heard oral arguments, several hundred spectators lined up outside, including two dozen protesters who wanted habeas rights restored.
The court granted an extra 24 minutes for the argument. The consolidated cases are Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States.
