About fraking time…
High Court ruling may delay war crimes trials
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
(06-12) 09:07 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) —The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
In its third rebuke of the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court’s liberal justices were in the majority.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
But, then, there is Scalia; who once again proves he doesn’t undersand our legal system:
Scalia said the nation is “at war with radical Islamists” and that the court’s decision “will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
Using Scalia’s logic, we might as well drop the whole pretense of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. Our very system of justice means that someone could get away with a crime, or be out on bail, and possibly commit another crime. We must lock every suspected criminal up otherwise we ‘will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed’.
Scalia’s argument makes even less sense when you consider that this ruling isn’t going to set anyone free today. It just gives them ‘due process’ under our laws. Why on earth is a justice of the supreme court afraid of due process under the court system in which he supposedly believes?
-Chris
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