On The Front Lines
U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case Challenging Indefinite Military Detention Without Trial of Legal U.S. Resident, al-Marri v. Pucciarelli
WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, which challenges whether the Executive Branch can authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of a legal U.S. resident. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and the Constitution Project filed a joint amicus brief with the Court on behalf of U.S. resident Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, asking the high court to ensure that the president's power, even in wartime, stems from the Constitution or Congress. The Rutherford Institute, an international civil liberties organization, and the Constitution Project, an independent bipartisan think tank, both seek to promote and defend constitutional safeguards and civil liberties. A copy of the amicus brief is available here.
"As our nation works to confront the challenges of maintaining security in an age of global terrorism, it is especially critical that we remain committed to safeguarding our constitutional rights and preserving the separation of powers," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "To this end, it is imperative that we ensure that the President's power--even in wartime--stems either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself."
Al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, was arrested at his home in Peoria, Illinois, and was transferred to military detention in South Carolina. He has been held for the past five years on the Bush administration's pronouncement that he is an "enemy combatant" and that the executive branch has inherent and statutory authority to detain civilians within the United States on that basis. In a five-to-four vote this July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit narrowly overturned a three-judge panel that had held that al-Marri should either be freed or charged as a civilian. Instead, in a fractured opinion, the en banc panel upheld the President's authority to hold al-Marri in military detention without charge. A different five-to-four alignment of the judges concluded that al-Marri has the right to additional proceedings to determine whether he is an enemy combatant. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and the Constitution Project urged the Supreme Court to take the case on the grounds that the Executive Branch has consistently maneuvered to evade Supreme Court review of its broad claims of detention authority. The amicus brief urges the Court to review the claims of Executive power, which exceed those previously asserted and again test the constitutional limits of executive detention authority. As the brief states, "Ordered liberty depends on the fundamental principle of separation of powers--i.e., that the Constitution inherently, or the Legislature explicitly, must authorize the Executive to act."
