Supreme Court to conference on Al-Marri this week
For a while now, the “season” whose statistics, subplots, and relative greatness I track with the most enthusiasm is that of the Supreme Court of the United States, and we are in the thick of things this year.
Although it’s invigorating to see that this court found in favor of a consumer (a consumer!) in the Wyeth drug labeling case, this civil libertarian is entirely consumed by Al-Marri v. Spagone, which was just featured in a great piece in the New Yorker.
Al-Marri is the ultimate test of Bush-era indefinite detention holdings, which have represented perhaps the most shameful abrogation of American values since 2001. The Obama administration did the right thing (the right thing!) by indicting him on criminal charges and beginning a path towards justice this week, as you likely heard. They’re doing the wrong thing, and perhaps attempting to hold onto illegally broad detention powers, by using the fact of that indictment to attempt to push Al-Marri’s case off the Supreme Court docket.
Anyhow, all of this inane background for one piece of real news, via the SCOTUSblog: the justices will conference Friday on what to do with the case, and we’ll probably know by next week. As reported in the link, “The Court agreed in December to rule on Al-Marri’s case, and the government’s brief — if the case is not dismissed — is due March 23.”
A criminal indictment is a deeply reassuring first positive sign from Obama that he’ll do right by civil liberties, but here’s hoping that the SCOTUS steps up to the plate and begins to reign in executive authority. I could have ended with a sports metaphor there, but I didn’t want to bowl anybody over.
