For Justices, Another Day on Detainees at Guantánamo

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LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/washington/03scotus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Observers at the Supreme Court on Wednesday should probably be excused in advance for concluding that they have wandered into a time warp.

The question before the court will be whether federal judges have jurisdiction to hear cases brought by detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer for a group of detainees will argue that they do; the Bush administration’s solicitor general will argue that they do not.

But did not the court already decide that question? Did not the justices rule in Rasul v. Bush in 2004 that federal judges could review the legality of the Guantánamo detentions, rejecting the administration’s position that the detainees’ fate was a question for the executive branch alone?

No, history will not just be repeating itself at the court Wednesday. It has moved on, and the four years since the court shocked the administration by agreeing to hear the Rasul case have been busy ones.