Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent
To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false.
According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN. CNN, in turn, named the DoD as its source. The '30' number, however, was corrected in a DoD press release issued in July 2007, and a DoD document submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim entirely."
The largest possible number of detainees who could have "returned to the fight" is 12; however, the Department of Defense has no system for tracking the whereabouts of released detainees. The only one who has undisputedly taken up arms against the United States or its allies, "ISN 220," was released by political officers of the DoD against the recommendations of military officers.
Scalia bolstered his hysterical claim that the Boumediene decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" with stale information that was proven to be false one year ago. Professor Mark Denbeaux, director of the Seton Hall Center, said Scalia "was relying uncritically on information that originated with a party in the case before him."
The Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 decision that the Guantánamo detainees were entitled to file petitions for writ of habeas corpus to challenge their detention. More than 200 men who have been held for up to six years and have never been charged with a crime, will now have their day in court. Many were snatched from their homes, picked up off the street or in airports, or sold to the U.S. military by warlords for bounty.
Scalia, who sits on the highest court in the land, has acted as a loyal foot soldier for the executive branch of government.
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Scalia can be impeached, right after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield...
scalia, bush, rumsfeld and cheney should all be prosecuted for Felony conspiracy, all of them as co-defendants charged with felony violation of the USA Patriot Act. Providing false information on terrorism is a felony violation of the USA Patriot Act. Disseminating false information on terrorism directly into the court record, scalia has literally been caught red-handed. He should resign but caesar's perverted never cease to marvel at the limits they might attain.
The RICO Act, the USA Patriot Act, racketeering and misprision of felony, I mean AMERICA ! What kind of filth is in your highest offices I mean sometimes I just can't believe this is happening in my sweet nation that I wish so dearly to love and respect.
Ask yourself the following question...
Why isn't this the lead story on every newspaper and on every evening news show across the nation?
Liberal media my ass!
Because foreign nationals and globalists own and control your media, like Rupert Murdoch, and I think their might even be worse ones than him, imagine!
Scalia is right this is not a good decision by the court. It is amazing to me how far we have come since 1942 when a similar situation was brought before the court. The only difference is the unlawful combatants were German and were caught in the US. But the decision is as sound today as it was then. An unlawful combatant is an unlawful combatant and has no right under Geneva Conventions and should not be allowed access to our court system, period.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/quirin.html
Were those unlawful combatants saboteurs or captured POWs?
There is a significant difference.
Look up the definition of unlawful combatants according to the Geneva Conventions. The Gitmo folks are not captured POWs.
In the case of those combatants held in Cuba, the difference is negligible. The Germans in question were proper military combatants, but operating out of uniform, a crime. The combatants in Cuba are not proper military combatants and were operating out of uniform, also a crime. Those in Cuba have no more civilian rights than those Germans did, and should be tried and, if appropriate, hung by military tribunal.
Semper fi
You're confused there. In 1942 we had POWs, who were fighting in an Army against us and were captured. They were treated with the respect due to them under the Geneva Conventions, and they asked to be released, but the SCOTUS decided (rightly) that since there was a definite point which would be the end of hostilities, they could be held until the end of the hostilities.
The men being held at Gitmo and elsewhere, by contrast, are NOT POWs. They were captured by locals in Afghanistan and Iraq, and turned over to the US for money. They were not fighting for a legal enemy, they were not in uniform, and they are therefore to be treated as any other suspected criminal would be. This means that they cannot be held for the duration of hostilities (both because there is no likely end to the hostilities, and because they may be innocent!) and MUST be afforded the rights of any other suspected criminal being held by the United States!
Good point.
Although some were captured on the battlefield fighting for the Taliban.
But others were rounded up on the word of informers. If they are terrorists, then there must be some evidence of it.
I think you are missing the point - in WW II the Germans you refer to were arrested as spys and most of them executed - two were held until the end of the war and returned to Germany after the German surrender. Germans wearing US uniforms during the Battle of the Bulge were shot as spies. The Germans caught in the US had trials under US law - they did have rights but were found guilty and sentenced to death. Scalia is not right - just right wing.
What do you bet that no one in DC cares.... you can produce this kind of info (truthful to be sure) all day long but it's not going to change anything there. Dems are powerless wimps, cept Feingold, who won't risk their own interests to make any real change.
I miss Carlin even more...
"To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts...."
In the U.S. system of justice defendants are not required to prove their innocence. Rather, the prosecution is required to prove their guilt. A habeus corpus hearing means the prosecution has to demonstrate that it has sufficient evidence to justify a trial. Scalia knows that. That makes him even worse than McCain or the maroons on Fox.
Of course Scalia used bogus info, just like the WH uses bogus info. They got nothing else.
Scalia is all bogus, all the time! LOTS OF BLUSTER.
He's too narcissistic and myopic to examine himself.
Scalia should at least CHECK HIS FACTS at URBAN LEGENDS http://www.snopes.com/
Scalia is a FRAUD and a SHAME on the Supremes.
When asked in a 60 minutes interview if torture was cruel and unusual punishment, forbidden in the constitution, his response was that it isn't punishment if you're trying to get information. It seemed to me that he was claiming that torturing during the discovery phase wasn't forbidden because that isn't the punishment phase; the intent there isn't punishment, it's getting information, so that makes it ok. There is no doubt that this jerk is an activist judge, and is everything he claims not to be.
In this recent case, claiming that this ruling would get people killed, is not what he's supposed to be doing according to him, which is interpreting the constitution.
And that isn't the worst of his reasoning.
He has argued that innocence is no defense against execution.
As long as the legal process was held to you cannot come into court after the process has taken its course with evidence of innocence.
According to Scalia it is not about justice. It is about dotting i's and crossing t's.
Torture is punishment for refusing to give them the information they wish.
When they ask you for the information, and you refuse, you are punished with torture.
Any torturer knows that and these guys aren't that smart ya know.
It's not like the first minute they start waterboarding you, that's last, because it can kill you, nice stuff first, homicidal stuff last, that's common sense.
It is possible for any Supreme Court Justice to find and utilize factual information to support any decision or dissent they might make. And as much as one might disagree with or even abhor that decision or dissent, one must concede resepct for the process through which it was derived.
But when non-factual, unsubstantiated information is used for that purpose, then the Justice(s) using it are either incompetent or corrupt. Whichever it is, they should not be on the court.
Actually, Lee, it's not permissible for a justice of the Supreme Court "to find and utilize factual information to support any decision or dissent" unless that factual information is either (1) contained in the record in the case before the court or (2) so indisputably true that it is subject to what is called "judicial notice." (The latter category is reserved for things so well known that they cannot be contested. E.g., Washington is the capital of the United States.)
I seriously doubt that the record in Boumediene contained the so-called "fact" that 30 released detainees had gone on to commit further acts of terror. It's far more likely that it came from the now-debunked minority report to which the poster refers. In that case, it was entirely IMPROPER for Scalia to rely on it, as any appellate judge will tell you.
But none of this is surprising to those who observe Scalia carefully. He claims to be a stickler for all sorts of rules, and then he routinely violates them when it suits him. In truth, he's simply a crassly political and entirely results-oriented justice.
America is a system based upon the routine violation of the law by those that create the law.
Providing false information on terrorism is a felony violation of the USA Patriot Act.
We all suckers brother, including most of the lawyers.
That %$#@ing Mathews confused Obama with Bin Ladin again just a second ago.What a jerk!
Agree completely....in this case the justice in question is quite famous for his powerful intellect, energetic work ethic, and his legal scholarship.
In the case of Scalia, maybe more so than any other justice, such false citation is indicative NOT of sloppy scholarship, or a failure to scrutinize the work of the clerks......but the sort of DELIBERATE misrepresentation of facts, calculated to make opinions conform to a given POLITICAL agena that is now as common as grass on the nation's highest court.
This is yet another instance in which we have the Republicans generally, and the Bush administration specifically, to thank for the erosion of respect for such cherished institutions as the court.
Appointees now view thier duty as the furtherance of the political agenda of the administration that appoints them, rather than to dispense impartial justice.
The preservation, protection, and defense of the constitution of the United States cited in the oath is no longer of the slightest concern to such jurists, and the people know it.
So, no: Scalia is not incompetent.
The word is the same as it is for a local judge who accepts an envelope of cash to fix a personal injury case: CORRUPT.
Scalia has simply sold his robe (and the Constitution with it) to a different customer..............for thirty pieces of silver...........tm
As a judge, I agree, Scalia is corrupt. But what is he as a man? He wants to imprison and torture people for years. YEARS! And never charge them with a crime. These prisoners are not allowed to die. If they refuse food they are force fed. The object seems to be to cause as much suffering as possible for as long as possible. Since this suffering serves no purpose, Scalia is inflicting it just because he wants to. Is there a word for such a man?
Scalia is a disgrace to the American judiciary. He has the ethics of a whore.
I used to believe that Scalia and Roberts would remember their oath to defend the Constitution better than the neoCONS and most lobby-bought career politicians do.
Where was MY head...
Take another look at Roberts. He isn't axactly the same as Scalia and Clarence. Could be his intellect, not in dispute, gets in the way of going too far over the edge.
What is the checks and balance of the Supreme Court? What if he was using poor information and swayed a decision.
Scalia is a lousy Supreme Court Judge, more like a Bush stooge. If the G.O.P. gets this election we can just expect more of the same.
Regardless of the number of detainees that were released, to the extent that some who were released do go and commit acts of terrorism, it proves either (a) the military commission that released them were erroneous (not the District Court Judges that would rule on a habeas corpus petition) or (b) that the unjustified imprisonment by the United States at Guantanamo may have pushed those detainees to become terrorists as a result of their developed desire for revenge. Why would Scalia believe the District Court judges would be worse than the Military Commission members who made mistakes in releasing dangerous individuals? The Courts did not release these people. Further do we have the right to hold those detainees in category (b) just because our conduct has now radicalized them?
So wait a minute? Scalia issued a LEGAL statement, as his official persona as a Supreme Court Justice, and he based this legal statement on information provided by the obviously biased party in front of him, which was debunked BY THAT SAME PARTY more than a year ago??
Yep. He probably still thinks Saddam Hussein supported 9/11 too.
Scalia and the other stooges (Roberts, Alito and Thomas) are nothing but partisan shills for the Bush Administration and the conservatives in general. His comments in his descent are not only incorrect but shows his true bias rather than being a scholarly interpretation of the law. We deserve better than that from our Supreme Court.
I'm not surprised. Have you ever listened to this guy in interviews. He's as arrogant as Cheney. Plus, he's been in the Bushies back pocket since before 2000, that's why he helped do in Gore in 2000.
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