Allred also pointed out that the status reviews were established to determine whether a detainee was being properly held here, not to determine whether he was subject to trial by military commission.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Hamdan's defense attorney, said the Military Commissions Act "demonstrates once again that if you put a statute together in three weeks and rush it through ... you end up with a process that doesn't work."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 07, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 69 words Type of Material: Correction
Guantanamo cases: An article in Tuesday's Section A about dismissal rulings in two Guantanamo cases misquoted John D. Hutson, a former Navy lawyer and now dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire. In assessing the significance of detainees who have faced trial at Guantanamo Bay, Hutson said, "We aren't exactly talking about Himmler and Goering, so far," not "Hitler and Goering," as it appeared in the article.
Donald J. Guter, a retired Navy rear admiral and Duquesne University Law School dean, agreed.
"There hasn't been anything we've done down there that has followed form or practice," Guter said. "It has been a lot of ad hoc and reverse engineering."
It was Swift who took Hamdan's challenge of his detention to the Supreme Court last year, leading to the high court's decision that Bush had overstepped his wartime powers when he unilaterally created the commissions two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, head of the war crimes tribunal defense team, said that Congress should take the opportunity to force the government to cease circumventing legitimate U.S. courts in its effort to prosecute Guantanamo prisoners.
"The military commissions are a model that has repeatedly shown itself incapable of rendering justice," said Sullivan. He added that after the rulings, "if the United States government is wise, this would be the fatal blow to military commissions."
Monday's rulings could provide an opportunity for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to again propose moving trials to the U.S. mainland. Gates, who told Congress earlier this year that he favors shutting the prison, was traveling in Kyrgyzstan on Monday.
In response to reporters' questions, Gates said he would have to review the decisions before making a substantive comment. "This is the reason we have a judicial process in all this," he said.
Some military observers doubted that the rulings would lead to the end of Guantanamo tribunals. Gates lost his first battle to close Guantanamo after Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials insisted that the prison remain open as an alternative to bringing the prisoners they have described as the world's most dangerous men to U.S. communities for trial in federal court.
Still, the rulings by the commissions' own judges seemed likely to compound criticism at home and abroad that the denial of Geneva Convention protections conflicts with American values and commitment to justice.
