Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
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| Hamdi v. Rumsfeld | ||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States | ||||||||
| Argued April 28, 2004 Decided June 28, 2004 | ||||||||
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| U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. Fourth Circuit decision vacated and remanded. | ||||||||
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| Laws applied | ||||||||
| U.S. Const. Art. II, Amend. V; 18 U.S.C. § 4001; 115 Stat. 224 (Authorization for Use of Military Force) |
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 124 S. Ct. 2633 (2004) was a U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition brought on behalf of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen being detained indefinitely as an unlawful combatant. The Court recognized the power of the government to detain unlawful combatants, but ruled that detainees must have the ability to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.
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Background of the case
Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in 2001 and then turned over to U.S. military authorities during the U.S. invasion. The U.S. government alleged that Hamdi was there fighting for the Taliban, while Hamdi, through his father, has claimed that he was merely there as a relief worker and was mistakenly captured. Hamdi was initially held at Guantanamo Bay, but then transferred to a naval brig in Norfolk, Virginia when it was discovered that he was a U.S. citizen, and then finally to a brig in Charleston, South Carolina. The Bush administration claimed that because Hamdi was caught in arms against the U.S., he could be properly detained as an unlawful combatant, without any oversight of presidential decisionmaking, or without access to an attorney or the court system. The administration argued that this power was constitutional and necessary to effectively fight the War on Terror initiated by the United States after the September 11th terrorist attacks, to ensure that dangerous terrorists were no longer a threat and could be fully interrogated.
In June of 2002, Hamdi's father, Esam Fouad Hamdi, filed a habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The court ruled that Hamdi's father was a proper "next friend" having standing to sue on behalf of his son, and ordered that a federal public defender be given access to Hamdi. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the District Court's order, ruling that the District Court had failed to give proper deference to the government's "intelligence and security interests," and that it should proceed with a properly deferential investigation.
When the case was then sent back to the District Court, it denied the government's motion to dismiss Hamdi's petition. The court found the government's evidence offered in favor of his detention to be woefully inadequate, based mostly on hearsay and bare assertions. The District Court ordered the government to produce numerous documents for review by the judge in chambers that would enable it to perform a "meaningful judicial review," such as the statements by the Northern Alliance regarding Hamdi's capture, the dates and circumstances of his capture and interrogations, and a list of all the officials involved in the determination of his "unlawful combatant" status.
The government appealed the order to produce the evidence, and the Fourth Circuit once again reversed the District Court. Because it was "undisputed that Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat in a foreign theater of conflict," the Fourth Circuit stated that it was not proper for any court to hear a challenge of his status. It ruled that the broad warmaking powers delegated to the President under Article Two of the United States Constitution and the principle of separation of powers prohibited courts from interfering in this vital area of national security. After the Fourth Circuit denied a petition for rehearing, Hamdi's father appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted review and reversed the Fourth Circuit's ruling.
The Court's opinions
Though no single opinion of the Court commanded a majority, eight of the nine justices of the Court agreed that the Executive Branch does not have the power to indefinitely hold a U.S. citizen without basic due process protections through judicial review.
Justice O'Connor wrote a plurality opinion representing the Court's judgment, which was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Breyer and Kennedy. O'Connor wrote that although Congress had expressly authorized the detention of unlawful combatants in its Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed after 9/11, due process required that Hamdi have a meaningful opportunity to challenge his detention. This required notice of the charges and an opportunity to be heard, though due to the burden upon the Executive of ongoing military conflict, normal procedural protections such as placing the burden of proof on the government or the ban on hearsay need not apply. O'Connor did not write at length on Hamdi's right to an attorney, because by the time the Court rendered its decision, Hamdi had already been granted access to one. However, O'Connor did write that Hamdi "unquestionably has the right to access to counsel in connection with the proceedings on remand." The plurality also argued that separation of powers required the courts to be involved with the detention process rather than forbidding it; to decide otherwise would merely consolidate power in the Executive Branch. O'Connor wrote that "a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."
Justice David Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, concurred with the plurality's judgment that due process protections must be available for Hamdi to challenge his status and detention, providing a majority for that part of the ruling. However, they dissented from the plurality's ruling that AUMF established Congressional authorization for the detention of unlawful combatants.
Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent, joined by Justice John Paul Stevens, went the farthest in restricting the Executive power of detention. Scalia asserted that based on historical precedent, the government had only two options to detain Hamdi: either Congress must suspend the right to habeas corpus (a power provided for under the Constitution only in times of "insurrection" or "rebellion"), which hadn't happened; or Hamdi must be tried under normal criminal law. Scalia wrote that the plurality, though well meaning, had no basis in law for trying to establish new procedures that would be applicable in a challenge to Hamdi's detention—it was only the job of the Court to declare it unconstitutional and order his release or proper arrest, rather than to invent an acceptable process for detention.
Justice Clarence Thomas was the only justice who sided entirely with the government and the Fourth Circuit's ruling, based on his view of the important security interests at stake and the President's broad war-making powers.
References
- [rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/sc/sc042804_sc1.rm Oral Argument in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld]
- Supreme Court documents on Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (http://www.jenner.com/news/news_item.asp?id=12551224)
See also
- Rumsfeld v. Padilla, a very similar case brought in the same year
- Rasul v. Bush, a similar case involving non-U.S.-citizens
- Donald Rumsfeld
External links
- Full text of the Court's opinions in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld at findlaw.com (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-6696&friend)
- NPR audio on the decision (http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3022055)
- Findlaw "war on terror" section (http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/index.html)
- The Supreme Court, the Detainees, and the "War on Terrorism" (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/mariner/20040705.html) (Findlaw)
- Hamdi v. Rumsfeld: U.S. Supreme Court Brief Resource Center, U.S. Supreme Court Amici Curić Briefs (http://www.jenner.com/news/news_item.asp?id=12551224) (Jenner and Block Law Firm)
- US Supreme Court decision, Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. (HTML) (http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZS.html) (Cornell Law School)
- US Supreme Court decision, Hamdi et al. v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al.(PDF) (http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69NewsDocumentOrder/FileUpload500/379/03-6696_decision_hamdi.pdf) (Jenner and Block Law Firm)
- Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (http://www.law.duke.edu/publiclaw/supremecourtonline/certgrants/2003/hamvrum.html)(Duke Law School)