Another judge delays detainee case
on Aug 6, 2007 at 4:05 pm
A federal judge who ruled more than two and a half years ago that Guantanamo Bay detainees had no legal rights that a federal court could uphold — a position later embraced by the D.C. Circuit Court, but now under review in the Supreme Court — has decided to delay any action to implement his view while the Supreme Court studies it.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, in a brief order on Monday, became the fourth District Court judge in Washington to keep alive a pending detainee habeas case for the time being. The Justice Department, having won in the Circuit Court a decision that detainees have no legal rights they could pursue in habeas court, had moved to dismiss all of the pending District Court habeas proceedings.
Judge Leon’s order can be found here. He had before him the government motion to dismiss; instead of acting on that, he said he would stay this case “pending resolution of all appeals” in this case and the ones now pending in the Supreme Court (Boumediene v. Bush, Supreme Court docket 06-1195) — one of the cases in which Leon had taken his position in January 2005 — and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196).
