D.C. Circuit Abruptly Closes Courtroom in Guantanamo Case

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A federal appeals court in Washington was prepared to hear a Guantanamo Bay detainee case in open court today, though the lawyers involved in the dispute were prohibited from talking about the confidential record.

A minute into the argument, Chief Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had heard enough and abruptly closed the courtroom to the public. That meant about a dozen people in the courtroom were barred from sitting in court to hear oral argument.

Sentelle said from the bench that an accidental disclosure of confidential information in an open courtroom presented “too much danger.” Another panel member, Senior Judge Laurence Silberman, noted that it was going to be tough ask questions of the lawyers. The third member of the panel, Judge Merrick Garland, whose name is reportedly on a short list as a possible Supreme Court pick, did not express a view from the bench.

The abrupt closure of the courtroom was unusual since the lawyers for the opposing sides—Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner John Ewald for the detainee and, for the government, Justice Department attorney August Flentje of the Civil Division appellate staff—had agreed to argue the case in public, according to court papers filed last month.

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/04/dc-circuit-abruptly-closes-courtroom-in-guantanamo-case.html

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1. K&R

[chill_wind]

2. Coward.

eom

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Now why would Judge Sentelle do that, I wonder?

Oh.....maybe this explains it.

Conservative Republican, Reagan appointee, who voted to overturn the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter, also he served on the Special Division of the Court which appointed Kenneth Starr under the renewed Independent Counsel statute.

And in 2007, he upheld the Military Commissions Act of 2006's suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants as constitutional.
Silberman's history is quite similar.

Water bearers for TPTB.

edit: clarification

[starroute]

4. Oh, I thought Sentelle's name was familiar

He's this guy -- a conservative ideologue who was made a judge by Reagan after campaigning for Reagan and Jesse Helms. He also overturned Ollie North's and John Poindexter's Iran-Contra convictions. Quite a track record!

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020513Livemore.html

A former Republican Party chairman in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Sentelle had relatively little judicial experience; yet while the Independent Counsel Act directed the Chief Justice to give priority in appointing judges to the Special Division to senior circuit judges and retired justices, Rehnquist ignored this directive and instead appointed Sentelle, who he knew would fulfill what was expected of him: to appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate President Clinton who had what we might expect Rehnquist also felt was the correct world view.

Sentelle, of course, delivered. He appointed Ken Starr, who also had, no doubt, what Delay and Sentelle would consider the correct world view.

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On edit: Oh -- change that to he and Laurence Silberman overturned North's and Poindexter's convictions. So they're still tag-teaming after all these years!

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/012610.html

Packing the courts with politically reliable partisans became a key behind-the-scenes goal of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Yet, because turnover on the Supreme Court is slow, Reagan took aim first at the influential U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., appointing hardliners like Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle. . . .

On the North appeal in 1990, Silberman teamed up with a younger conservative, Judge Sentelle, to overturn the three felony counts against North. The appeals court vote was 2-1, as these two Republican “law-and-order” judges suddenly were voting to expand the rights of criminal defendants in cases involving limited immunity, which North had secured from Congress before testifying.

Sentelle, a protégé of conservative Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, also served on a second appeals panel that overturned the conviction of Poindexter on similar grounds.

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5. Wish I could have been in Garland's car on the way home