Hamdi V. Rumsfeld - Subsequent Developments

Subsequent Developments

Although by the terms used in the Court's holdings they were apparently limited to "citizen-detainees," the last paragraph of section III, D of the O'Connor plurality (four justices: O'Connor, Rehnquist, Kennedy, and Breyer) relies on the Geneva Convention and states that Habeas Corpus should be available to an "alleged enemy combatant." Based on that language and Court's holding in the case of Rasul v. Bush (issued on the same day as Hamdi, but limited solely to the holding that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions filed by the Guantanamo detainees), the government conceded that some very limited due process rights allowing for hearings to determine the detainees' status as enemy combatants and the right to legal counsel would be extended to all of the Guantanamo detainees, citizen and non-citizen alike. The application of the Court's decisions in these cases is not inconsistent with the fact that the other two justices in the Hamdi majority, as well as two of the dissenting justices (Scalia and Stevens) were even more restrictive in their willingness to concede any of the detention powers requested by the government for Guantanamo detainees in the Hamdi case.

In regard to the detention of detainees without charge, in section I of the O'Connor plurality opinion the plurality relied on the time-honored traditions of war, the Geneva Convention, and a long list of other international treaties, to hold that the government had authority under the Authorization for Use of Military Force enacted by Congress in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to hold any enemy combatants until the cessation of hostilities (not indefinitely). The plurality held that such protective detention could be applied to both citizen and non-citizen enemy combatants. Of the four justices outside the plurality, Justices Ginsburg and Souter limited their opinions to their position that Section 4001(a) of Title 18 of the United States Code (the Non-Detention Act; enacted to prevent the sort of detention that occurred when the United States placed Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps during World War II) prevented the detention of U.S. citizens. Justice Scalia (whose opinion was joined by Justice Stevens), restricted his holding to citizen-detainees and implied that anyone held outside of United States' territory might be beyond the reach of the Court altogether. Again, the Rasul case did not directly address the detention issue, and any hearings would be limited to the determination of enemy combatant status.

In the subsequent case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court decided that the "military commissions" created to try unlawful combatants for war crimes suffered from certain fatal procedural defects under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention and were without other legal authority to proceed, despite Congress' attempt to deprive the Court of jurisdiction to decide that issue by passing the Detainee Treatment Act. Justices in the majority (particularly Justices Kennedy and Breyer) disagreed with Justice Stevens as to whether the "charge" of conspiracy could be maintained to justify the determination of unlawful combatant status. Although the Court struck down the military commissions as created by the Executive Branch, they did not provide the detainees with direct access to the federal courts, but only with access to a fair and impartial hearing to a tribunal constitutionally authorized by Congress and proceeding with certain due process guarantees (such as one operated under terms similar to those provided by Article I courts under the UCMJ or according to the terms of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949).