On The Front Lines
Padilla Finally Given Access to Lawyer!
Pentagon Agrees to Allow Jose Padilla, American Citizen Detained as 'Enemy Combatant,' Access to LawyerWASHINGTON--The Pentagon has announced that it will allow Jose Padilla, an American citizen held incommunicado by the military for more than a year as an alleged al-Qaida supporter, to see a lawyer. FBI officials arrested Jose Padilla at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002, as a material witness in a plot to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States. Padilla has been held in solitary confinement in a military brig in South Carolina since June 9, 2002, when President Bush declared him to be an "enemy combatant." After having their policy of holding Padilla incommunicado successfully challenged in court, the Pentagon has now determined that providing Padilla access to an attorney will not compromise national security or interfere with efforts to use him as an intelligence source.
In July 2003, attorneys with The Rutherford Institute, the Cato Institute, the Center for National Security Studies, the Constitution Project, People for the American Way and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights filed a joint friend of the court brief with the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit asking the court to support Padilla's fundamental right as an American citizen to not be held indefinitely without charge. The groups asked the court to observe an express congressional directive forbidding the detainment of American citizens without specific statutory authorization. In a 2-1 ruling issued in December 2003, the court held that only Congress can authorize the detention without charge of American citizens seized on American soil. The Bush administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case on appeal.
"The fact that the Pentagon is allowing Jose Padilla to see a lawyer is a victory in itself, but we still hope that the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case and firmly establish that the protections afforded by the Constitution fully apply to all citizens," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "It's unfortunate that it took litigation and public pressure for the Bush administration to recognize Padilla's rights as an American. It's time our government learned that making someone 'disappear' so as to be held incommunicado because he is regarded as the 'enemy' is far beyond the pale of what America is supposed to stand for."
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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