Senate Passes Amendment to End Habeas for Detainees

[realFedUp]

Wake up America!!! These Dem Senators should lose their
seats over this one.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013056.html

Thursday :: November 10, 2005

Senate Passes Amendment to End Habeas for Detainees
Bump and Update: Unbelievable. The Senate today passed Lindsay Graham's amendment, 49 to 42 barring detainees at Guantanamo and others declared by the Executive Branch to be enemy combatants from seeking judicial review of the legality of their detentions.

Democrats indicated they may try to kill or change the provision before the Senate votes on the overall bill next week. Five Democrats sided with 44 Republicans in voting for the provision.

Who are the five Democrats who voted with Republicans?

Conrad, N.D.; Landrieu, La.; Lieberman, Conn.; Nelson, Neb.; Wyden, Ore.

As I said below, this is an end-run around the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush which held Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge the legality of their detentions.

Action:

With virtually no advance notice the Republican majority in the Senate (with the shameful complicity of Democrats Conrad, Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson, and Wyden) approved a last minute amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to deny U.S. courts jurisdiction to examine the legality of detainee detention in Guantanamo and elsewhere. They did this in defiance of the not yet completely packed Supreme Court (another reason to reject Alito), whose authority they would annul. This is all despite the well-known FACT that many scooped up into these hell holes of torture are not terrorists at all, some even having been sold for bounty. Senator Bingaman immediately responded with a proposed corrective amendment (S.AMDT.2517) to restore jurisdiction.

Visit this site
- http://www.millionphonemarch.com/habeas.htm - fill in your information, and send your message to your representatives in Congress and, if you wish, to newspapers.

[realFedUp]

1. This doesn't just affect detainees, affects citizens in Am. jails...nt

The writ is "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 290-91 (1969).

[realFedUp]

3. Did President Lincoln suspend the U.S. Constitution?

Did President Lincoln suspend the U.S. Constitution?

Answer: No

Did President Lincoln suspend Habeas Corpus?

Answer: Yes, in 1861 and 1862

Was Habeas Corpus ever restored?

Answer: Yes, in 1866.

Here's the story:

As the Civil War started, in the very beginning of Lincoln's presidential term, a group of "Peace Democrats" proposed a peaceful resolution to the developing Civil War by offering a truce with the South, and forming a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect States' rights. The proposal was ignored by the Unionists of the North and not taken seriously by the South. However, the Peace Democrats, also called copperheads by their enemies, publicly criticized Lincoln's belief that violating the U.S. Constitution was required to save it as a whole. With Congress not in session until July, Lincoln assumed all powers not delegated in the Constitution, including the power to suspend habeas corpus. In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.

Among the 13,000 people arrested under martial law was a Maryland Secessionist, John Merryman. Immediately, Hon. Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States issued a writ of habeas corpus commanding the military to bring Merryman before him. The military refused to follow the writ. Justice Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney's ruling.

Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.

[realFedUp]

2. Definition of habeas corpus

habeas corpus

Lat. "you have the body" Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. Habeas corpus petitions are usually filed by persons serving prison sentences. In family law, a parent who has been denied custody of his child by a trial court may file a habeas corpus petition. Also, a party may file a habeas corpus petition if a judge declares her in contempt of court and jails or threatens to jail her.

[oneighty]

4. So Congress

can scrap supreme court rulings?

I guess that is good news?

180

[Hyernel]

5. Lieberman must go!!

I feel sick that that DINO SOB was almost Vice President.

/...that that? I guess.

[katinmn]

6. Harry Reid needs to call them into a meeting and tell them

to stop being traitors and fuck-ups.

I wonder what they are getting in return for those votes.

[realFedUp]

8. they seem to be getting corporate money

at least the ones who voted for CAFTA.

Of course who needs money for re-election
when the votes aren't there.

[woodsprite]

7. Why on earth did Landrieu vote for this?

Historically, (from DU) I know she has sided with Repubs at times. I thought their reaction to the NOLA disaster would have cured that. She seemed to have a decent head on her shoulders. I wouldn't think a decent person who believed in our Constitution and rights would have voted for this at all.

Just trying to figure this out. I chalked Lieberman up to a closet repub a long long time ago. I often wonder about his VP run with Gore. I voted for Gore because I liked his environmental policies and I didn't want Bush in office, but the only hesitation I had was over Lieberman. I didn't want him being in such a set-up for a presidential run - Didn't trust him.

[realFedUp]

9. I really don't know who she's representing anymore....nt

[KoKo]

10. It's hard to give her a pass on this one just because LA is a Conservative

State. I've tried to forgive her votes on Opening Anwar and siding with Repugs on Bankruptcy Bill, etc.

But, a vote for this just blows my mind. :shrug:

[woodsprite]

11. Makes me wonder if someone didn't say "You vote with us and we'll

do xxxxx for NOLA."