Andrew Cohen Court Quotations

This scenario ? sending the case back down for more consideration ? was discussed at length during the oral argument on the case so I'm not sure that the parties here are terribly surprised that the Court would punt on the merits and perhaps avoid the issue altogether. The Court frequently does this, in cases large and small.

So this is a case where Padilla loses the round in court but actually gains some measure of freedom. Padilla wins by losing. He gets out of military custody now and presumably into an environment in some jail somewhere where he will have more complete access to his lawyers and a better chance not just to see the allegations against him but to prepare his own defense.

A lot of people on all sides of this fight were hoping the Court would step in and answer the question of what the president could do or not do to these so-called enemy combatants.

Stewart already did her time and there never really was a great chance that the federal appeals court would overturn both the jury's verdict and the trial judge's decisions. So this sews up this case on another losing note for Stewart.

The court almost had to take up this issue again. It was clear in 2003 when it said that you could not limit this procedure unless certain exceptions were in place. Congress then enacted a law without those restrictions and now the court will have to decide whether the justification for the Congressional action is constitutional or not. It should be a very close case, almost certainly a five-four ruling.

The unanimous ruling tells me that there wasn't a lot of patience or sympathy by the court for the argument by the law schools. And I would think that this finally ends the long-running legal debate on this issue.