[Winstonm]

This is a little intricate to explain, but I will be as succinct as possible.

Jose Padilla was born in New York City. He is an American citizen who always retained his citizenship. He was arrested in Chicago and accused him of being a terrorist. He was never idicted or convicted - instead, he was declared an "enemy combattant" and turned over to the military.

He was held for three (3) years without charges in South Carolina - while there, his attorneys filed a writ for petition of habeus corpus.

This is where is gets complex and shows the U.S. legal strategy at work.

When the habeus corpus petition was filed, the U.S. agreed (after holding him 3 years without charges) to transfer his case to the Justice Department, which then proceeded to procure a grand jury indictment for terrorism overseas.

The district court ruled in favor of Padilla, saying that the habeus corpus covered American citizens regardless of what the charge and that the U.S. military had no power over U.S. citizens - the U.S. government appealed this decision to Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, upholding the status of "enemy combattant" in a "war on terror", thus giving the military hold over U.S. civilians declared as such.

However, another legal step was started, and this is where it gets "odd". Padilla's lawyers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case - which would seem a logical and final step in such an important question as to whether the U.S. military has legal right to hold, torture, and even execute a U.S. citizen by the simple expedient of declaring him an "enemy" combattant.

Surprisingly, before the Supreme Court could hear the case, the government transferred Padilla into the jurisdiction of federal court on criminal charges of having committed acts of terrorism.

Why was this critical? Once Padilla had been moved into federal jurisdiction, the argument of habeus corpus became moot. There is long-standing legal precedent that if a case or controversy become moot while the case is pending, the court loses jurisdiction. The Supreme Court lost jurisdiction and declined to hear the case. This is what the government lawyers were after the whole time.

Why? What did this accomplish? Now, today, as I write this, the precedent established by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is that the U.S. military has the legal right to declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy combattant", arrest him without charges, hold him indefinately, torture him, and he has absolutely no rights under law.

And because a higher court has established this precedent, no lower court will ever challenge the voracity of the law so filing a petition for a writ of habeus corpus for one deemed an "enemy combattant" is an act of futility.

This grants the U.S. military the same powers over its civilians as that held by the ,militaries of China, N. Korea, and the old Soviet Union.

[mike777]

I suppose in a civil war you might get away with this but surprised to not hear more about this one case.

Again I assume all agree he is USA citizen.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Mar 9 2007, 11:57 PM, said:

I suppose in a civil war you might get away with this but surprised to not hear more about this one case.

Again I assume all agree he is USA citizen.

That was my biggest question, too, Mike - is he a U.S. citizen. From everything I could find out, he is indeed a U.S. citizen, and although has been overseas never revoked or renounced that citizenship.

I am not claiming him a good guy and he may be guilty - that is not the point - point being that, if he is a U.S. citizen, precedent has been established that could affect any one of us.

As far as hearing about this, it is hard to get much publicity when you are held in solitary confinement for 3 years with no habeus corpus rights. Do you sincerely think the MSM would report on anything not fed to them by some news agency?

MSM is no longer news - just a lot of talking heads reading teleprompters.

[pbleighton]

The loss of civil rights is the worst part of the Bush legacy.

Peter