Sunday, October 12, 2003

Trying to move another "terrorist" case to the 4th Circuit

This column from the Village Voice mentions that the Department of Justice is trying to get the Jose Padilla case transferred from the Second Circuit to the Fourth Circuit:

"Ashcroft's Justice Department is striving mightily to persuade the Second Circuit that the case should be transferred to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, on jurisdictional grounds. Regarded by many lawyers, as well as civil libertarians, as the most conservative of all the circuit courts (which are just one level beneath the Supreme Court), the Fourth Circuit has already bowed to the president in the case of Yaser Hamdi. He is another American citizen being held indefinitely, without charges, and without access to his lawyer in a military brig. The Fourth Circuit has ruled that commander in chief Bush has the power to haul away an American citizen anywhere—at O'Hare, in Afghanistan, or on any American street. All Bush has to do is call him or her an 'enemy combatant.'"

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