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| Prisoner abuse may influence high court |
| By Knight Ridder News Service |
| Published: 05/24/2004 |
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Controversies over the handling of prisoners in Iraq and at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba have severely damaged the Bush administration's argument that its detention system is beyond the reach of U.S. law and courts, several legal experts said last week. The Supreme Court is weighing whether detainees at the Guantanamo Navy base should have access to federal courts to challenge their confinement and whether two U.S. citizens held as "enemy combatants" have any legal rights. The Justice Department has argued that the detainees don't deserve Geneva Convention protections, have no legal rights and that judges in wartime should have no say in how the executive branch and military handle captives. But the images of abused detainees in Iraqi prisons and the Pentagon's confirmation this week that interrogators used special "stress and duress" techniques on some captives in Guantanamo have undermined that "trust us" argument used in court, several analysts said. "The justices don't live in solitary confinement, and this will certainly have an impact on them," said Eugene Fidell, director of the nonpartisan National Institute of Military Justice. David Scheffer, a former war crimes ambassador in the State Department, said the justices now realize that the government didn't disclose much about how detainees in the war on terrorism have been treated. The Supreme Court will rule by the end of June on the cases of the Guantanamo detainees and the separate cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, the two U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants. Some Supreme Court observers said the court appeared closely divided on the cases, with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy in the familiar roles of swing votes. One former official in GOP administrations said that based on conversations this week, some Bush officials are "very worried that the revelations will hurt their case." Lee Casey, another lawyer who served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said the recent disclosures "may well affect their thinking." The prison camp has been shrouded in secrecy since it opened in January 2002 and now holds about 600 detainees. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been the only independent monitor of conditions there, and the agency has complained to U.S. officials about some of the treatment. Its reports aren't released to the public. |
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