Boston attorneys hail Guantanamo verdict

June 13, 2008 02:42 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Globe Staff

Boston attorneys who are representing men being held at Guantanamo Bay hailed the US Supreme Court decision Thursday allowing the prisoners there to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

"It's a great day to be a lawyer," said Robert Kirsch, an attorney at WilmerHale, the large national firm with offices in Boston. "It's an excellent decision."

Kirsch, whose firm brought the case on which the high court ruled, said the court "didn't make new law. It simply pointed out the law that was there."

Michael E. Mone Jr., a lawyer at the small firm of Esdaile Barrett and Esdaile, who is also among the cadre of local lawyers representing prisoners pro bono, said, "I'm ecstatic and I'm very proud of the Supreme Court. It's a decision that's been a long time coming."

President George Bush has asserted that he has broad powers to detain terrorist suspects in order to protect the nation. But the court, in an opinion Thursday written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, said the framers of the Constitution saw the need "to guard against the abuse of monarchical power" and, therefore, gave individuals the right to contest their detentions, even during "extraordinary" times.

Bush said Thursday he would abide by the decision, but he added, "That doesn't mean I have to agree with it."

Doris Tennant of Tennant Lubell LLC said she had just returned today from a trip to Guantanamo.

"After six and a half years, we're glad that cases are going to move forwards. ... This has been a really long time coming," she said.

Kirsch said his firm, with the help of 20 to 30 lawyers, including 10 to 12 in the Boston office, had taken the case of six men born in Algeria who were living with their families in Bosnia when they were arrested in October 2001. A Bosnian court cleared them but they were taken into custody anyway by the United States.

He said the attorneys worked "very seriously" on the case, as if it were a case for the "the biggest company in the world."

"These men who are being held illegally deserve nothing less than that. They simply can't afford it," he said.

Stephen Oleskey, another WilmerHale attorney, said he was concerned that the government would delay hearings until the Bush administration ends, at which point the firm's clients would have been detained seven years.

He said the men are suffering from a variety of physical and psychological ailments after a long period of being "treated very brutally."

"We need to get them home while they have some hope of leading productive lives with their families and children," he said.