The Supreme Court dismissed the suit brought in al-Marri v. Spagone during conference this morning. The order is here. Al-Marri argued that he was being held unlawfully because he had not been formally charged with any crimes during his almost 6-year long detention. That changed last week when the Obama administration filed formal charges against [...]

The Supreme Court will discuss whether or not to continue the case of al-Marri during conference on Friday, March 6, according to the Supreme Court’s docket sheet. Among other things, Al-Marri charges that his detention without formal charges represents an unconstitutional breach of habeus corpus. Last week, the Obama administration formally charged Al-Marri and motioned [...]

It now appears as though the much-anticipated case al-Marri v. Spagone (08-368) won’t be heard by the Supreme Court. al-Marri has gotten a taste of some change he can believe in, courtesy of the Obama administration. The United States Circuit Court for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled en banc last June that [...]

The Court today handed down an Order’s List (here) that, among other things, granted, vacated and remanded a detainee case and struck down another petition questioning Barack Obama’s qualifications to be President. In Rasul v. Myers, a group of individuals who had been held in Gutantanamo filed suit claiming inappropriate use of torture and “religious [...]

I can’t talk much because I’m on a plane waiting to take off at DFW, but this is one news story that hasn’t been given enough attention. I don’t say that because I think it hasn’t gotten enough press – it certainly has. But is anyone paying attention? His driver got 66 months in jail! [...]

Oral Arguments took place this morning in Boumediene v. Bush and its sister case, Al-Odah v. US. Because of the heightened interest in the case, the Supreme Court opted to expedite the delivery of the audio recording and it was broadcast on C-Span by 11:50EST, less than an hour after the arguments concluded. The arguments [...]

The Supreme Court today released a press release announcing that they will be providing the audio recording of oral arguments in Boumediene and Al-Odah as early as possible. Its nice to see that the Court is embracing the internet and recognizing the advantage that speedily released arguments provide. The transcript will appear online at its [...]

The Petitioner’s Briefs have been submitted in Al-Odah v. US and Boumediene v. Bush, the two high-profile detainee cases that the court has accepted for review. Thanks to SCOTUSblog, everyone can access the Al-Odah briefs here (Al-Odah) and here (El-Banna) and the Boumediene brief here. I’ll use Al-Odah for the majority of my analysis but [...]

The Washington Post had a article recently about the way in which more and more American’s are viewing the court as too conservative. 33% of Americans feel that the Court is too conservative and only 47% believe that the court is balanced. 55% of Americans agree with the court’s ruling in Carhart but 70% disagree [...]