Judge voids scores of captives' habeas cases

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has dismissed more than 100 habeas corpus lawsuits filed by former Guantánamo captives, ruling that because the Bush and Obama administrations had transferred them elsewhere, the courts need not decide whether the Pentagon imprisoned them illegally.

The ruling dismayed attorneys for some of the detainees who had hoped any favorable U.S. court findings would help clear their clients of the stigma, travel restrictions and, in some instances, perhaps more jail time that resulted from their stay at Guantánamo.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan wrote he was "not unsympathetic" to the former detainees' plight. "Detention for any length of time can be injurious. And certainly associations with Guantánamo tend to be negative," he wrote.

But the detainees' release from the remote base in southeast Cuba made their cases moot. "The court finds that petitioners no longer present a live case or controversy since a federal court cannot remedy the alleged collateral consequences of their prior detention at Guantánamo," he wrote.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/05/1564840/judge-voids-scores-of-guantanamo.html#ixzz0kHzVCwFc

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

"...petitioners no longer present a live case or controversy since a federal court cannot remedy the alleged collateral consequences of their prior detention at Guantánamo"


and isn't that just so convenient.....

[Bluebear]

2. Terrifically convenient.

:puke:

[Solly Mack]

5. Guess they should be grateful to be out of GTMO and just move forward...

because moving forward means it won't ever happen again and that all the bad can be erased....

[MUAD_DIB]

3. Alleged collateral consequences...????

Is their former imprisonment really considered alleged?


How about just wrongful imprisonment?

[blondeatlast]

6. I noticed that too. Strange. nt

[DeSwiss]

4. K&R

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan =

[gratuitous]

7. I'll be contrarian, and say it makes sense

If they're no longer incarcerated, the United States no longer habeas the corpus, and those petitions should be dismissed. As for any wrongful imprisonment lawsuits, those should stll be alive. As far as liability for any future incarceration, it would be nice if Hogan's opinion addresses that point, as in, any future detainment of any of the dismissed petitioners cannot rely in any way on their past incarceration at Guantanamo. But Hogan may have regarded that as beyond his purview, or a contingency that the petitions didn't address.

[Sanity Claws]

9. exactly

The problem is not Hogan's ruling -- that was expected. The problem was the movement of these prisoners to moot the habeas corpus petitions and avoid judicial resolution of the legal issues.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R