The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has issued a press release concerning today's historic Supreme Court decisions. Here's a snippet:

For over two years, the Bush Administration have tried to have it their
way, not the Constitutional way. These decisions are a stern rebuke. The
Executive Branch may not be the sole arbiter of who is detained and for how
long. Detainees must have access to counsel and the courts,” [NACDL President Bo] Edwards said.

President-Elect Barry Scheck, who met with Navy Secretary Gordon England June 23 to discuss the draft procedures for review of individual detainees, predicted that the Defense Department will go back to the drawing board. “The Secretary of the Navy’s administrative review procedures are dead in the water."

A big thanks to Scotus Blog--written by the Goldstein & Howe law firm--for being indispensable today with the first news and analysis of the Supreme Court opinions.

Goldstein & Howe, P.C., is the nation's only law firm devoted principally to litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States. In the last two terms, the firm was counsel in thirteen cases decided on the merits. This term, we are lead counsel in three merits cases. The firm also regularly consults and drafts briefs on intricate and important issues in matters in other courts.

Foreign detainees also have the right to challenge their detentions. The Rasul v. Bush opinion is here (pdf).

United States courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad inconnection with hostilities and incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.

(a) The District Court has jurisdiction to hear petitioners’ habeas challenges under 28 U. S. C. §2241, which authorizes district courts, “within their respective jurisdictions,” to entertain habeas applications by persons claiming to be held “in custody in violation of the . . . laws . . . of the United States,” §§2241(a), ©(3). Such jurisdiction extends to aliens held in a territory over which the United States exercises plenary and exclusive jurisdiction, but not “ultimate sovereignty.”

That's our word for it--weasels--the Associated Press calls it a sidestep. Whatever. The Supreme Court today declined to address the Jose Padilla case on its merits. The opinion is here (pdf):

The Supreme Court sidestepped a third major terrorism case, ruling that a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainee Jose Padilla improperly named Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instead of the much lower-level military officer in charge of the Navy brig in South Carolina where Padilla has been held for more than two years. Padilla must refile a lawsuit challenging his detention in a lower court.

Update: Scotus blog is blogging live via Blackberry while reading the Padilla and Hamdi opinions. Some of their comments:

Hamdi is 8-1. Within the majority, the 4 Justice plurality (which gives Hamdi intermediate procedural rights) is formed by the dissenters in the Apprendi cases, reflecting their pragmatic take on the Sixth Amendment. The strongest believers in Apprendi - Scalia and Stevens - take the hardest line on the right to get into a criminal court.

More:

This may get lost in the shuffle of today's big opinions, but it shouldn't. The Supreme Court decided two Miranda cases today, and in one of them, Miranda takes a hit.

The Court holds that physical fruits of a Miranda violation don't get suppressed but that purposeful Miranda violations vitiate a subsequent confession.

The Siebert opinion is here and the Patane opinion is here.

Update: AP article on decisions here.

In a rebuke to the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court ruled today in Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld that enemy combatants may challenge their detention, and that they have the right to counsel. The opinion is here (pdf).

The New York Times is reporting here that the Court, in an opinion by Justice O'Connor, has "partially" sided with the Bush administration in the Hamdi case, ruling that Hamdi can be held without charges or trial, but can challenge his detention in court, and that he can "unquestionably" have access to counsel. This sounds as if it is a significant loss for the Government. (Hamdi, unlike Padilla, had not seriously challenged the Government's right to detain him if he is an enemy combatant.)

Associated Press story here. From Reuters:

Four of the nine justices concluded that constitutional due process rights demand that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant must be given "a meaningful opportunity" to contest case for his detention before a neutral party. Two more justices agreed that the detention of American citizen Yaser Hamdi was unauthorized and that the terror suspect should have a real chance to offer evidence he is not an enemy combatant.

One quote from O'Connor's opinion:

the court has "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."

by TChris

For all its flaws, the Rehnquist Court has recognized that federal legislators unnecessarily meddle in areas that should be left to state regulation, resulting in the federalization of crimes that are largely of state or local concern. It will have another chance to consider the limits of federal power when it responds to John Ashcroft's invitation to review the Ninth Circuit's ruling blocking DEA agents from arresting California patients who have been using marijuana under the advice of a physician -- an activity that is legal under California (but not federal) law.

The Ninth Circuit held that growing or possessing pot for personal use is different from interstate trafficking, which Congress can regulate pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Ashcroft doesn't care if there's an interstate commerce connection when it comes to drugs, but Ashcroft has never been a friend of the Constitution.

The Rehnquist court has frequently taken cases from the Ninth Circuit just to reverse them, but this time, the Ninth Circuit is following logic that is consistent with Rehnquist's narrow view of the Commerce Clause. We should know soon what the Court will do.

The appeal came before the justices Thursday in their last regularly scheduled conference of this term, and they are likely to decide Monday whether to review the case.... If the court turns away Ashcroft's appeal, it would leave untouched the 9th Circuit's ruling that protects a patient's right to use home-grown marijuana.

Update: The Supremes voted to review the case.

by TChris

To avoid an anticipated surge of attacks on Wednesday, the Bush administration declared Iraq a sovereign country today, two days ahead of the scheduled transfer of power.

Iraq's outgoing U.S. governor Paul Bremer handed a letter to Iraq leaders sealing the formal transfer of powers before immediately flying out of the country.

Here's how the administration defines "full sovereignty."

[The government] is barred from making long-term policy decisions and will not have control over more than 160,000 foreign troops who will remain in Iraq.

We received this by e-mail, and believe it warrants dissemination:

Chanda Bennett, a 27 year old female prisoner of Rockwall County Jail
is being denied her heart and blood pressure medications. She was just transfered to ER on June 24th and diagnosed with a heart attack and in need of a pacemaker Instead the jail transferred back to incarceration and are now refusing to transfer the inmate to the ER for continued radiating arm "electrifying" pain and vomiting. Both are classic symptoms of a heart attack extending and are life threatening emergencies.

Please help by signing
this petition to Texas governor. Chanda is in jail for a nonviolent misdemeanor and her life is in danger from medical neglect.

The Petition ends with:

Good for John Kerry. He has canceled a speaking engagement at the Mayor's Conference in Boston Monday because police will be picketing the hotel in which the conference is being held. He won't cross a picket line.

"Senator Kerry will not cross the picket line and therefore will not address the U.S. Conference of Mayors," said spokesman David Wade...."John Kerry has never crossed picket lines in his time in public life," said Wade.

While we're not generally supporters of law enforcement, we will say that it's shameful how little we pay our police--and our teachers. We hope the mayor of Boston reconsiders.

by TChris

This is a familiar story. A parent catches her kid breaking the law. She turns him in and instructs him to plead guilty, expecting that a fair-minded judge will give the kid a stern lecture before imposing some community service hours.

That isn't the way it works. Catherine Quigley and her son learned that the hard way.

Quigley, angry after Matthew took his sister's car for a joy ride, thought a much-needed scare by police would serve him right. ... Instead, the arrest snowballed into a grand-theft-auto conviction -- a third-degree felony with strict penalties.

Parents who think the legal system will treat their kids fairly need to understand that the system works best when kids invoke their constitutional rights by consulting with a lawyer before deciding whether to plead guilty.

Throughout the country, juveniles are admitting guilt without the advice of attorneys at alarming rates -- a problem that has sparked calls for reform among legal scholars, attorneys and child advocates. In Florida, about one in four young people charged with serious crimes pleads guilty without legal advice, according to University of Florida researchers.

The Florida Supreme Court is going to decide whether a juvenile should be required to meet with an attorney to assure that the decision to waive counsel is made with a full understanding of the consequences of pleading guilty without legal assistance. Experience shows that hasty and uninformed guilty pleas lead kids into worlds of hurt they never expected. Lawyers can correct the mistaken beliefs that guide the advice given by parents, including the myth that a juvenile record will never come back to haunt an adult. Courts should make sure that kids understand their rights before they give them up on a parent's advice.

by TChris

The latest book for the tirelessly well-informed reader to peruse is Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Written by a counterterrorism official still working for the CIA, the book argues that the Bush administration has unnecessarily left the United States with a choice in Iraq and Afghanistan "between war and endless war."

The book charges that Saddam Hussein posed no immediate threat to the United States; that the war in Iraq undermined the overall war against terror and actually played into bin Laden's hands; and that the United States is losing that war on terror.

Here are selections from a Newsweek interview with the anonymous author.