Timeline on Supreme Court rulings on Guantanamo
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. It's the latest setback for the Bush administration, which has tried for years to come up with a way to keep terrorism suspects out of civilian courtrooms.
June 2004
THE CASES: Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
THE RULINGS: The Supreme Court issued two opinions on detainee issues on the same day, June 28, 2004. The Hamdi case ruled that a U.S. citizen seized on the Afghanistan battlefield and detained in a U.S. military brig can challenge his detention in U.S. courts. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that "a state of war is not a blank check for the President." The Rasul case held that foreign-born detainees can challenge their detention in U.S. courts. The administration had argued that the detainees had no constitutional rights and courts had no jurisdiction over their cases.
THE RESPONSE: The Bush administration set up secret military review panels, known as combatant status review tribunals, to review detainee cases and decide whether they really were enemy combatants. Congress then passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which formalized the process and stripped federal district courts of the authority to hear new detainee cases.
June 2006
THE CASE: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
THE RULING: The court ruled June 29, 2006, that the Bush administration's planned military commissions at Guantanamo Bay violated the laws of war and international conventions. The court also reiterated that detainees could pursue cases in civilian courts. The plaintiff in the case was Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden.
THE RESPONSE: The White House quickly pressed Congress for a new law that would set up military commissions and still pass constitutional muster. The result was the Military Commissions Act, which stripped federal district courts of their authority to hear any detainee challenges, including those that had already been filed. The law set up a process in which detainees would be tried before commissions that could consider hearsay evidence and evidence obtained through coercion.
June 2008
THE CASE: Boumediene v. Bush
THE RULING: The court ruled Thursday that foreign Guantanamo Bay detainees have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in civilian courts. The court ruled 5-4 that the government was violating the rights of prisoners there. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."
THE RESPONSE: Neither the White House nor the Justice Department had an immediate comment on the ruling. The decision immediately resurrected nearly 200 detainee cases that had been on hold in the Washington federal courthouse.
