THIS JUST IN: SCOTUS preserves Habeas Corpus...Scalia is still a Dick!

In a 5-4 ruling today, SCOTUS said that in the case of Boumediene v. Bush that Habeas Corpus applied to detainees at GITMO. Although this does not expand their rights at all, it prevents the final death knell in what is one of our most important rights and what ensures we stay a democracy.

From Wikipedia:

Habeas Corpus is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

It was an amazing rebuke not only to the President, but to the Congress, and is something we don't see too often...the Supreme Court actually ruling the right way has been sparse recently. And, of course, the 4 dissenting judges were the quartet of the most dangerous men in America: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Those 4 men have done more to set back civil rights than any other in Americas.


A few of the highlights from the 70+ page majority decision eloquently written by Justice Anthony Kennedy:

Security depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and the ability of our Armed Forces to act and to interdict. There are further considerations, however. Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers. It is from these principles that the judicial authority to consider petitions for habeas corpus relief derives.

Within the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person.

and

The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers decided that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that law.

And from Souter's concurrence:

After six years of sustained executive detentions in Guantanamo, subject to habeas jurisdiction but without any actual habeas scrutiny, today’s decision is no judicial victory, but an act of perseverance in trying to make habeas review, and the obligation of the courts to provide it, mean something of value both to prisoners and to the Nation.

On another note, Justice Antonin Scalia showed his true colors in this decision...Scalia's dissent is worth reading, even for you all that are not nerds like me, for such statements as "it will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Unbelievable.

Some of the other highlights from one of the worst opinions Scalia has written (generally, even when I disagree with him, which is 99.5% of the time, he at least comes off as intelligent...here he does not):

America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad...

and

The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.

We have been living to regret Scalia opinions since he took his seat on the court in 1986. Thank god this is one we will not!