Rasul V. Bush - Stevens' Role

Stevens' Role

Justice Stevens had interesting and unique history with the key precedents cited in the opinion of the case. Much of the opinion was built around the Eisentrager ruling, which was based on Ahrens v. Clark′s holding that petitioners invoking Habeas Corpus must direct their claim to the court that has jurisdiction where they are held: therefore, since Eisentrager's German detainees were in China and clearly no US court holds jurisdiction there, they could not file a Habeas motion. However, a later case, Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, relaxed Ahrens' rule, thereby undercutting the logic used in Eisentrager. What is interesting about this line of reasoning is that neither party to the case argued this to the court. It was made by Justice Stevens, who was uniquely suited to decide on this case as he was a law clerk for Justice Rutledge and actually drafted the dissenting opinion in Ahrens. Stevens kept track of the impact of the Ahrens ruling as it was relied upon in Eisentrager and even later wrote a biography of Rutledge for a law review where he used Ahrens as an example of Rutledge's skill and care as a justice. It was with this inside knowledge of the history of the law surrounding the issues at question in Rasul that Stevens was able to craft such a detailed opinion relying upon such obscure but relevant precedent.