Supreme Court Spins US Citizens Out of Justice

The Boopsy Twins

Court skeptical of taking on Iraq cases
Several Justices Express Doubts About Extending Reach of US Courts Into Iraq
PETE YOSTAP
Mar 25, 2008 13:11 EST
Several Supreme Court justices expressed strong doubts Tuesday about extending the reach of U.S. courts into Iraq to stop the transfer of two American citizens into Iraqi control.
The skepticism by Chief Justice John Roberts and others came after a lawyer representing the Bush administration argued that U.S. courts cannot intervene in the cases of Mohammad Munaf and Shawqi Omar.
Omar allegedly assisted a terrorist network and Munaf allegedly set up the 2005 kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Baghdad. Both proclaim their innocence and both are Sunni Muslims who say they will be tortured if turned over to the Iraqi government.
The Bush administration's legal position is that the two men are being held by the multinational force in Iraq, of which the U.S. contingent is only a part.
[...] Joseph Margulies, the lawyer for Omar and Munaf, says the two are under the control of the U.S. military and should have access to U.S. courts.
Margulies told the justices that "the buck stops with the United States government when it comes to these detainees."
[...] Responding to concerns expressed by Justice Samuel Alito, Margulies said providing Munaf and Omar the rights to which they are entitled as U.S. citizens would not impact the other 20,000 people in custody in Iraq.
[...] Justice John Paul Stevens rejected Margulies's argument that there is a parallel between the cases of Omar and Munaf and that of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen seized on the Afghanistan battlefield and later detained at a naval brig in Charleston, S. C.
"A very different place of detention," Stevens said.
The Supreme Court gave Hamdi the right to use U.S. courts to challenge his detention and the Bush administration eventually released Hamdi.

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=100433

WWJRD?

TruthDig presents Maria Cocco with an excellent report on the next wave of voter fraud. Keep an eye out for John Roberts, who will show his true colors on this matter.
Justice Is Blind, but Can She Vote?
Posted on Jan 8, 2008
By Marie Cocco
WASHINGTON—The most revealing indicator of the state of our democracy is not to be found in the snowdrifts of New Hampshire but in the marbled chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon enough, we will discover whether the court under Chief Justice John Roberts will become a partisan tool in the national Republican drive to place constraints on voting that are targeted at those who tend to support Democrats.
Not since the Supreme Court stopped the Florida presidential election recount in 2000 has a voting case been so significant, or so overflowing with partisan bile.
On Wednesday, the justices will hear a challenge to Indiana’s strict law requiring photo identification in order for a voter to cast a ballot at the polls. The state claims the law is necessary to stop voter fraud. Yet no one—not Indiana officials, not the U.S. Justice Department, which has taken the state’s side in the dispute, nor any commission—has come up with a single case in the state’s history in which an impostor showed up and cast a vote.
[…] studies have repeatedly shown that those least likely to possess photo identification—most commonly a driver’s license—are African-Americans, the poor, the elderly and the disabled. In short, they are more likely to vote Democratic.
[….] The Justice Department is a party to this embarrassment, including in its brief an example of absentee ballot fraud in a mayoral primary. But the Indiana ID law has no bearing on absentee voters. The state still allows absentee ballots to be counted without a photo ID, on the basis of a signature checked against registration rolls. Still, the department argues that the mere “temptation” of voter fraud and the possibility of “undetected” wrongdoing is sufficient to support a law that constrains some legitimate voters from casting a ballot in person.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080108_justice_is_blind_but_can_she_vote/