Billmon:
Perhaps John Paul decided that given the court’s current composition, bringing Padilla up for a ruling on the merits was no longer such a good idea. Discretion can still be the better part of valour, and I can see the case for it here.
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April 4, 2006
WB: Justice Stevens Takes a Dive
Comments
Oh shock and horror. I long, long ago lost respect (if I ever had it) for those shills on the High Court.
Posted by: D | Apr 4 2006 14:45 utc | 1
This, of course, preserves intact the gang’s future ability to lock other American citizens up in the brig without trial — consigning the right of habeas corpus to the same museum of historical curios as the Fourth Amendment.>/I>
tick tock tick tock
nyt
“questions about government authority will have to wait for still another day.”
Posted by: annie | Apr 4 2006 14:54 utc | 2
obviously the supremacist court doesn’t consider this case a matter of national interest, what w/ the executive branch taking on the responsibility of interpreting what the constitution actually meant to say & such…
Posted by: b real | Apr 5 2006 2:39 utc | 3
Oh Billmon, Billmon…there he goes again, teasing us with just a taste of his exquisite imagery, just enough to leave us crying in our beers. Fig leaf versus the full monty…Sigh, I’d sell my soul to be able to write like that.
Posted by: SME in Seattle | Apr 5 2006 3:50 utc | 4
I don’t believe that Stevens took a dive. I think this happened (from http://www.lefarkins.blogspot.com):
“Here’s what I’d actually lay money on: The liberals — all four of them — feared that they would lose on the merits. And thus, even though all four wanted to hear the case, all four could not risk voting to grant cert. So instead, they deliberately arranged for one — Stevens, apparently — to vote to deny, so that they could at least write a three-person opinion dissenting from the denial.”
On the merits, there would have been four votes siding with the government- Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito – and four against – Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter. Kennedy was an unknown. The liberal wing didn’t want to take a chance. (It takes only 4 votes for the court to hear a case). So they blinked- refused to take the case. I think Stevens and Kennedy jointly forced the majority to insert the “don’t do it again” language, which appears to be as far as Kennedy would go.
By the way, it’s a hell of note that we talk about old-fashioned conservatives like Souter and Stevens and straight-down-the-middle moderates like Breyer as “liberals.”
Posted by: JR | Apr 5 2006 15:10 utc | 5