Conservative Appeals Court Slams Administration on Padilla Detention

Today, the panel rejected both requests in an opinion written by J. Michael Luttig, a conservative often mentioned on the administration's short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.
.....
The appeals court opinion reflected a tone of anger that is rare for a federal court addressing the United States government, particularly in a matter of presidential authority.

Luttig said the government's actions created the appearance "that the government may be attempting to avoid" Supreme Court review in a matter of "especial national importance."
.....
"And these impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts, to whom it will one day need to argue again in support of a principle of assertedly like importance and necessity to the one that it seems to abandon today.

"While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all of this," he ended, "it is difficult to imagine what that objective would be."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122101524.html

:wow:

I'm so glad he bitch-slapped 'em.

Luttig is one of the darlings of the right wing, and supposedly was one of the judges given serious consideration for the Supreme Court vacancies. I guess that since he did manage to retain a few vestiges of intellectual honesty in this case despite his normal right-wing-nuttery, he will no longer be one of the Regime's pet judges, and won't be considered if another SC opening occurs.

:rofl: Hey, George, yer own judge just hosed ya!

Great statement from the court (4th Appelate)...

He nails the Administration's MO. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Avoid public discussion. Avoid oversight. Avoid judicial review. Avoid checks and balances. Avoid Constitutional constraints.

Kudos to Justice Luttig.

I love the heads up he gives the administration:

"And these impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts, to whom it will one day need to argue again in support of a principle of assertedly like importance and necessity to the one that it seems to abandon today.

"While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all of this," he ended, "it is difficult to imagine what that objective would be."

Update: More from the Fourth Circuit's Padilla decision, sent along by reader WF:

...The government has held Padilla militarily for three and a half years, steadfastly maintaining that it was imperative in the interest of national security that he be so held. However, a short time after our decision issued on the government’s representation that Padilla’s military custody was indeed necessary in the interest of national security, the government determined that it was no longer necessary that Padilla be held militarily. Instead, it announced, Padilla would be transferred to the custody of federal civilian law enforcement authorities and criminally prosecuted in Florida for alleged offenses considerably different from, and less serious than, those acts for which the government had militarily detained Padilla. The indictment of Padilla in Florida, unsealed the same day as announcement of that indictment, made no mention of the acts upon which the government purported to base its military detention of Padilla and upon which we had concluded only several weeks before that the President possessed the authority to detain Padilla, namely, that Padilla had taken up arms against United States forces in Afghanistan and had thereafter entered into this country for the purpose of blowing up buildings in American cities, in continued prosecution of al Qaeda’s war of terrorism against the United States.

….

For, as the government surely must understand, although the various facts it has asserted are not necessarily inconsistent or without basis, its actions have left not only the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake –- an impression we would have thought the government could ill afford to leave extant. They have left the impression that the government may even have come to the belief that the principle in reliance upon which it has detained Padilla for this time, that the President possesses the authority to detain enemy combatants who enter into this country for the purpose of attacking America and its citizens from within, can, in the end, yield to expediency with little or no cost to its conduct of the war against terror –- an impression we would have thought the government likewise could ill afford to leave extant. And these impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be substantial cost to the government’s credibility before the courts, to whom it will one day need to argue again in support of a principle of assertedly like importance and necessity to the one that it seems to abandon today. While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all of this, it is difficult to imagine what that objective would be.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003348.html