Out of the mouths of babes. Gitmo and my Constitutional Law Class.

[Renaissance Man]

Yesterday, I received this e-mail from my Constitutional Law professor concerning a case that we argued (Boumediene v. Bush) in moot court in my Con Law class. Needless to say, our (what I assume to be liberal) Constitutional Law professor was proud of his class.

Indeed, we are the ones that we have been waiting for.

Greetings again, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thanks to all of you who’ve emailed me about the momentous Boumediene v. Bush decision that was handed down today by our U.S. Supreme Court. As we discussed in class last fall, the swing vote in the 5 - 4 decision was indeed Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the majority opinion, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito in dissent. There are also concurring and dissenting opinions.

You can read the NY Times article on the case at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/washington/12cnd-gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The actual slip opinion is here or available from the NY Times article if this link doesn’t work:

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/06-1195.pdf

The decision stretches all the way back to Marbury v. Madison to address the separation of powers issues and includes many of the opinions we discussed and you argued about in the Moot Court Exercise as pertinent to deciding the conflict, from US and English courts, on habeas corpus, extraterritoriality, and earlier military tribunals. Reading the NY Times article and the summary at the beginning of the decision will give you a good idea about what is said in the opinions and I strongly encourage each of you to read the entire decision when you have the chance so that you can see how incredibly close your arguments, questions, commentaries, editorials, stories, and opinions came to the real thing.

From my standpoint, having this moment read the NY Times article and the summary, it really just goes to show, once again, what a truly remarkable group of thoughtful, bright, and dedicated students you were!

Hope you’re having a great summer, keep in touch, and let me know how you’re doing.

ATB,

Con Law Professor