Padilla v. Hanft', 423 F.3d 386 (4th Cir. 2005)
After the Supreme Court vacated a ruling in his favor by the Second Circuit (see above), Jose Padilla filed a new petition in the District Court for the District of South Carolina. The district court granted Padilla's motion for summary judgment and ordered the government to release him from military detention, while suggesting Padilla could be kept in civilian custody if charged with a crime or determined to be a material witness.[1]Padilla's attorneys had based their argument on the dissenting opinion of four Supreme Court Justices, who would have found Padilla's detention barred by the Non-Detention Act, 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a), and the language in Hamdi seemingly limiting the scope of detention authority under the AUMF to combatants captured in Afghanistan. The government argued that Padilla's detention is covered under the Hamdi decision's interpretation of the AUMF as an act of Congress authorizing his detention because he is alleged to have attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before traveling to Pakistan and then to the United States.[2] The judge disagreed with the government, finding that more express authority from Congress would be necessary and that the AUMF contains no such authority. Accordingly, the court found Padilla's detention barred by 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a). The court also disagreed that the President has inherent authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to determine wartime measures.[3]
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that Padilla, although captured in the United States, could be detained pursuant to the AUMF because he had been, prior to returning to the United States, "`armed and present in a combat zone' in Afghanistan as part of Taliban forces during the conflict there with the United States."[4] As the Supreme Court again considered whether to grant review, the government charged Padilla with conspiracy based on evidence unrelated to the original "dirty bomb" plot allegations and petitioned for leave to transfer him from military custody to a federal prison for civilian trial.[5] The Court granted the government permission to transfer Padilla[6] and later denied certiorari.[7] Padilla was found guilty and
- ↑ Padilla v. Hanft, 389 F. Supp. 2d 678 (D.S.C. 2005).
- ↑ See Respondents' Answer to the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus at 2, Padilla v. Hanft, C/A No. 02:04 222126AJ (D.S.C. filed 2004).
- ↑ 389 F. Supp. 2d at 690.
- ↑ 423 F.3d 386, 390-91 (4th Cir. 2005).
- ↑ The government initially asked the Fourth Circuit to approve Padilla's transfer and suggested it should vacate its opinion, but the judges preferred to defer to the Supreme Court to make that determination. In rejecting the government's application, Circuit Judge Luttig (who has since stepped down from the bench) issued a harsh opinion expressing disappointment at the government's decision abruptly to abandon its position that national security imperatives demanded Padilla's continued military detention:
[A]s 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.
Padilla v. Hanft, 432 F.3d 582, 587 (4th Cir. 2005)(order).
- ↑ Padilla v. Hanft, 546 U.S. 1084 (2006).
- ↑ 547 U.S. 1062 (2006).
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