Case Study: Boumediene v. Bush (2008)

Facts of the Case

As part of the “War on Terror” after the September 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush asserted authority to try captives from the war before "military commissions"instead of through the civilian court system. Many captives in the war were held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Because of the mixed jurisdiction with Cuba, the president argued that the Guantanamo captives were not subject to American law and were not entitled to protection under the U.S. Constitution or the American justice system. Relatives and friends of captives filed petitions for habeas corpus.

In a 2004 case of Rasul v. Bush, the Court dismissed the administration's argument that the Naval Base is outside civilian courts' jurisdiction and ruled that the captives must be given an opportunity to hear and attempt to refute whatever evidence had caused them to have been classified as "enemy combatants."

In a 2006 ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled that only Congress and not the president had the Constitutional authority to set up military commissions to try captives taken in the War on Terror.Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 in October, creating military commissionssimilarto those formerly set up by the Executive Branch.

Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was one of the captives held at Guantanamo Bay without formal charges. Pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus, he challenged the legality of his detention, as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

Article 1, Section 9, of the U.S. Constitution provides, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it”

In 5-4 rulingin Boumediene v. Bush, issued December 5, 2007, the Court held holding that the prisoners had a right to the habeas corpus under the U.S. Constitution and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of the habeas right.

Opinion of the Court

Writing for the Court, Justice Kennedy observed:

“Because our Nation’s past military conflicts have been of limited duration, it has been possible to leave the outer boundaries of war powers undefined. If, as some fear, terrorism continues to pose dangerous threats to us for years to come, the Court might not have this luxury. This result is not inevitable, however. The political branches, consistent with their independent obligations to interpret and uphold the Constitution, can engage in a genuine debate about how best to preserve constitutional values while protecting the Nation from terrorism. Cf. Hamdan, 548 U. S., at 636 (Breyer, J., concurring) (“[J]udicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation’s ability to determine—through democratic means—how best to do so”). …

It bears repeating that our opinion does not address the content of the law that governs petitioners’ detention. That is a matter yet to be determined. We hold that petitioners may invoke the fundamental procedural protections of habeas corpus. The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers decided that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that law.

Dissenting Opinion

In a sternly worded dissent, Justice Scalia warned of dire consequences from the Court’s ruling to apply habeas rights to detainees:

America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. …On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. … It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.

The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. ….

But even when the military has evidence that it can bring forward, it is often foolhardy to release that evidence to the attorneys representing our enemies. And one escalation of procedures that the Court is clear about is affording the detainees increased access to witnesses (perhaps troops serving in Afghanistan?) and to classified information. …

The Court today decrees that no good reason to accept the judgment of the other two branches is “apparent.” …“The Government,” it declares, “presents no credible arguments that the military mission at Guantanamo would be compromised if habeas corpus courts had jurisdiction to hear the detainees’ claims.” … What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today’s opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails.

Focus Questions

  1. The “War on Terror” is not a war in the traditional, historical sense of the word. What impact does that fact have on this case?
  2. Given the War on Terror is not a traditional war, how do we determine when it begins and ends?
  3. What did the Court ultimately decide?
  4. Why, do you suppose, the dissent spends so much time presenting a dire picture of the consequences of this case? Should that matter to the resolution? What does the dissents bleak predictions have to do with the law of war?