Yaser Esam Hamdi - U.S. Supreme Court Decision

U.S. Supreme Court Decision

On June 28, 2004, the Supreme Court issued a decision repudiating the U.S. government's unilateral assertion of executive authority to suspend constitutional protections of individual liberty.

"An interrogation by one's captor, however effective an intelligence-gathering tool, hardly constitutes a constitutionally adequate fact-finding before a neutral decision-maker," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The U.S. Supreme Court opinion reasserted the rule of law in American society: "It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad."

Justice O'Connor added, "We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

The Supreme Court decision in Hamdi did not say that the government cannot detain enemy combatants: it can detain enemy combatants for the length of hostilities. However, they must give some sort of due process for determining their status as an enemy combatant. Although Congress has recognized the existence of the Pentagon's administrative procedure, the CSRT, the Supreme Court has not recognized it as providing due process.