Habeas, Quaint Habeas

11 Comments

1. 

   Cali Scribe on November 11, 2005 at 10:31 am

   about this, I thought of the line from “Good Night, and Good Luck” that’s mentioned in all the previews on TV: “You cannot defend freedom abroad by denying it at home.”

   So, Mr. Bush, tell us how we’re better than Saddam Hussein, Mohammar Qadafi, or any other two bit dictator who “disappears” people he doesn’t like? I guess that two-ply Constitution toilet paper is extra cushy on your rear end…

   Oh, yeah, “9/11 changed everything.” It set up you and your neo-con buddies to do the work Your Father Below had given you to do — to destroy 200+ years of goodwill that this country had built. Freedom? Sure, if you’re rich enough to pay for it.

   Yeah, I’m a little pissed…

   • 

     rumi on November 11, 2005 at 12:04 pm

     If the entire GWoT is seen from the perspective of exploiting it to quietly influence global finances and politics, then it is possible to see Cheney and Graham both working together to achieve a common goal.

     Silence any opposition and/or whistleblowers when necessary.

2. 

   boran2 on November 11, 2005 at 10:42 am

   If McCain did make this deal, what did he really get?  One step forward, two steps back.  I suppose he can tout his “gain” should he run for higher office.  Ughh.

   • 

     Dean Pajevic on November 11, 2005 at 10:51 am

     t’s speculation but … he was on all the news shows last night.  I watched PBS Newshour, and there he was … and on and on.

     Did you see Lindsey Graham arguing fo his anti-habeas amendment?  

     I thought he was going to pop an artery.

3. 

   froggywomp on November 11, 2005 at 11:49 am

   Can someone with an understanding of the constitutional issues involved here say whether there’s any chance that the revocation of habeas would be overturned by the courts?

   • 

     Dean Pajevic on November 11, 2005 at 2:04 pm

     Lawyers are woried about this.

     In my story yesterday on the amendment vote, I quoted at length from an LAT op-ed by three attorneys.

     And then there’s the changing complexion of the courts.  Who knows if Bush’s judges will give a damn.

4. 

   brinnainne on November 11, 2005 at 12:06 pm

   I can’t stand this — first it was the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and people all saying, it’s ok, it doesn’t apply to American citizens, when in fact, as we have seen borne out the past 4 years, it sure as hell does, your citizenship doesn’t protect you AT ALL. Just ask Mr. Padilla.

   Now this? No recourse, just get used to that phrase, because that is what we are all going to be left with: NO RECOURSE.

   • 

     rumi on November 11, 2005 at 12:13 pm

       Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen who spent some time working here in Boston. He did nothing wrong, from all accounts and investigations, and had his life destroyed without recourse to the specious claim of ‘state secrets’.

       We are being asked to give this ultimate authority to the same ones who have refused to be honest with us.

     It may be too late, already.

   • 

     sbj on November 11, 2005 at 1:56 pm

     This is the kind of shit that happens when the promise of Law AND Order is replaced with the idea of Law OR Order.

     One concept is a function of the true process of Democracy; the other is a precursor to and a function of tyranny.

5. 

   Arcturus on November 11, 2005 at 3:35 pm

   Hopefully those 9 senators will quash this.

   Chief Justice Roberts recused himself from Hamdan’s appeal which the Supreme Court agreed to hear on Nov 7. Will the other justices agree with his lower court decision that would allow absolute executive power in these detentions?

   The Center for Constitutional Rights (which represents several Guantanamo detainees) writes:

   The Graham amendment will create a thousand points of darkness across the globe where the United States will be free to hold people indefinitely without a hearing and beyond the reach of U.S. law and the checks and balances of the courts enshrined in our Constitution. The last time this country suspended habeas corpus was for the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, a travesty that is now universally recognized as a blot on our nation’s history. The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus has always been to relieve those wrongfully held from the oppression of unchecked executive power.  The most reliable way to determine whether someone is properly held or a victim of injustice is to have a right to judicial review of the detention.  This has been understood at least since the proclamation of the Magna Carta in 1215.

   While the Administration and its supporters have tried to characterize the men being held at Guantánamo as the worst of the worst against all evidence, the fact is that even the military has admitted that they often apprehended the wrong people.  Most have no ties to Al Qaida, many were turned over to the U.S. for bounty, and many more were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If they have no way to appeal their innocence or their status, they will be left to rot in detention indefinitely.

   Most Americans don’t realize how badly our habeas rights have been eroded over the last decade. Issues arising from the last attempt in 1996, under the Anti-Terrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act, are still being litigated. Habeas is the byzantine bedrock of death penalty appeals.

   This new legislation (Streamlined Procedures Act) would all but strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over constitutional claims regarding imposition of the death penalty, unless the state court found no error at all, OR the error has already been deemed “structural” by the US Supreme Court. Structural errors are ones that are so bad that they are reversible “per se”, i.e, without any showing of prejudice. They are few and far between: denial of counsel altogether, denial of a jury trial, denial of defendant’s right to testify, and a handful of others. Let’s just say that the State courts have a history of finding all sorts of outrageous behaviors to be “harmless” and the Federal courts often already agree, even without this legislation.

   On a somewhat related note, CA has scheduled ex-Crips founder turned anti-gang violence crusader, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, nominated several times for a Nobel prize, to be executed on Dec 13. DP posterboy for some, posterboy for gubernatorial clemency for many (including the 9th Circuit federal judges who turned down his appeal), any errors in his trial have been declared “harmless:”

   The U.S. Supreme Court has now rejected Tookie’s appeal to investigate the racism and discrimination at the heart of his case, as well as Tookie’s innocence issues. One issue highlighted the fact that the prosecutor in Tookie’s original case removed three African-American jurors from the jury. During Stan’s trial, this prosecutor made racially-coded remarks during his closing argument, comparing Stan during the trial to a Bengal tiger in the zoo and stating that a black community – South Central Los Angeles – was equivalent to the natural “habitat” of a Bengal Tiger.

   Now upheld by the United States Supreme Court, this ruling will establish as “case law” for the nation the right for prosecutors to exclude jurors on the basis of race and to denigrate minority defendants in front of all-white juries.

   The ruling is a frontal attack on the civil rights of all Americans.

   The California State Supreme Court had twice censured this prosecutor for equally discriminatory behavior.

   “Harmless” indeed! It’s my impression that under the new legislation, these claims couldn’t even be heard by a Federal judge.

6. 

   observer393 on November 11, 2005 at 9:20 pm

   treats foreigners in the same manner as it own nationals in the courtroom. Period.