Folks are now wondering if the revelations coming out of Abu Ghraib prison will influence the Supreme Court’s ruling in the cases before it about al-Qaida suspects held at the Gitmo and Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi:
It is always difficult to know how judges are affected by events. But judges, even Supreme Court justices, do not live outside the realities of the world around them,” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, who wrote a friend-of-the court brief opposing the Bush administration in the Guantanamo case.
“If the recent events in Iraq have any impact on the justices, it will likely be to make them less confident about giving broad deference to the executive on such matters,” Stone said.
I like to think that justice is blind to current events somewhat, but given that the strongest moral argument for giving the executive branch this kind of power is that they can be trusted with it, I don’t see how it can’t impact their decisions. What I mean by that is I don’t see how the Justices will not need to jump out ahead of the Pentagon investigation (should it take longer than the SCOTUS June deadline, which I believe it will, no?) and come to some conclusion on their own about whether or not the abuse was systematic and reflects an Administration-wide problem.
I look at the accumulated evidence, and I see an administration, which only responded when there were pictures in the hands of CBS News and the New Yorker. The pictures — not the torture — were what has goaded the President and the Secretary of Defense into apology mode. I see the problem as systematic — I see the connection between Bush’s decision to regard the Geneva Convention as purely advisory, and the low-level disregard of its requirements. I see all that.
But, I suspect a committed right-wing authoritarian (Scalia? Rehnquist?) could “see” everything as hunky dory. The military had initiated investigations in response to reports of abuse; things were being “handled” properly. The top leadership did not approve of what happened, and would have corrected matters in due course. The “problem” is the media hysteria; the military and executive need more scope to keep these things private and secret, so that they can be handled routinely and with consideration of evolving circumstances.
Black letter law is not in dispute. “Unlawful enemy combatant” has no basis in written, legitimate law. But, the authoritarian personality is back, to spread its poison.
I know the justices are only human, but I would hope that their decision will not be affected by the news of the day — I’d hope that they would have already taken into account the possibility of this sort of abuse, without having to have it confirmed by color photos. If they fully acknowledged before that it could happen, then the fact that it did happen shouldn’t change their minds at all, right?
Listening to the Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing right now. John McCain is taking these guys to school.
For crying out loud, Lieberman is doing it again!
I can’t get a good net connection Gromit, where you watching?
I’m listening on WUNC’s streaming server linked from this page.
Justices and Judges read the papers. A famous jurist of long ago remarked that Judges also read the election returns.
That said, I don’t think they can or will cite any non-record evidence to support a decision.
But the court will look at the basic premises embodied in the Constitution: Separation of powers to prevent tyranny, equal justice under the law, etc. The fundamentals are not favorable to the Bush position.
The Bush legal team made a “trust us” argument before the court. And they would not admit to any particular length of time they would withhold some form of “justice”. In the case of Gitmo, they argued that US courts had no jurisdiction, since it was outside the US and held non-citizens.
During the oral arguments, several justices expressed doubts concerning the Bush team claims. I doubt Bush will get what he wants, and current events will likely play some unspoken role in what is decided by those two or three crucial justices who will determine the majority opinion.
In the end, the law is what the court says it is, and I can’t forsee the court endorsing processes that have no judicial review for unlimited periods of time.