slate: Last week, John Roberts wrote Bush a blank check

[Monkie]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2123055/

Thank You, Mr. President
Last week, John Roberts wrote Bush a blank check.
By Emily Bazelon
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005, at 10:00 PM PT

Since Sandra Day O'Connor resigned almost three weeks ago, John Roberts has been the Washington, D.C., establishment choice to take her seat on the Supreme Court—among some Democrats as well as Republicans
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But an opinion that the 50-year-old judge joined just last week in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld should be seriously troubling to anyone who values civil liberties. As a member of a three-judge panel on the D.C. federal court of appeals, Roberts signed on to a blank-check grant of power to the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists without basic due-process protections.
~snip~
This tribunal isn't like the courts-martial that are used for prisoners of war. It goes by rules that cut back the rights of defendants even more drastically than the tribunal that the United States has helped establish in Iraq to try Saddam Hussein has. Hamdan has no right to be present at his trial. Unsworn statements, rather than live testimony, can be presented as evidence against him. The presumption of innocence can be taken away from him at any time; so can his right not to testify to avoid self-incrimination. If Hamdan is convicted, he can be sentenced to death."

Sounds like a real winner to me..