NYT: Case Accusing Bush Officials of 9/11 Abuses Heads to Supreme Court

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/us/politics/supreme-court-9-11-muslim-bush-administration.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

Case Accusing Bush Officials of 9/11 Abuses Heads to Supreme Court

By ADAM LIPTAK
OCT. 11, 2016


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to decide whether high-ranking George W. Bush administration officials — including John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director — may be held liable for policies adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The case began as a class action in 2002 filed by immigrants, most of them Muslim, over policies and practices that swept hundreds of people into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on immigration violations in the weeks after the attacks. The plaintiffs said they had been subjected to beatings, humiliating searches and other abuses.


snip//

Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the plaintiffs, said the cases, Ashcroft v. Turkmen, No. 15-1359 and two others, involved fundamental principles.

“No one is above the law,” she said. “To suggest that the most powerful people in our nation should escape liability when they violate clearly established law defies the most fundamental principle of our legal system.”

“At a time when racial and religious profiling are put forward as serious policy proposals for dealing with everything from immigration to terrorism, it is more important than ever that the high court affirm that government officials, especially those at the highest levels, can be held accountable when they break the law,” she said.

Unless the Senate confirms a new justice in time for arguments, the cases will be heard by just six justices, as Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan have recused themselves. They did not say why, but Justice Sotomayor used to be a judge on the Second Circuit and Justice Kagan was formerly United States solicitor general. They had presumably been involved in the cases in those capacities.

[ColemanMaskell]

1. hunh. Thanks for posting.

[yeoman6987]

2. Oh great so the court will be 4-2 Repugs? I can see this dropped in a minute.

Unless Kennedy goes with justices bryer and Ginsburg. Then it's a tie and the lower court stands.