WASHINGTON — In a surprise move, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider whether prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had been wrongly held for years without a fair chance to plead their innocence.
In a brief order before adjourning for the summer, the justices announced they would hear an appeal that in April they had refused to hear. The case asks whether "foreign citizens imprisoned indefinitely" by the U.S. military can go to federal court and, if so, whether their imprisonment amounts to "unlawful confinement" from which a federal judge might free them. The court is to hear arguments next term, which begins Oct. 1.
Court personnel said it had been 60 years since justices had rejected an appeal petition and then reversed themselves and voted to hear the claim.
The switch may reflect frustration among the court's more liberal and centrist members over the Bush administration's handling of the Guantanamo issue, according to civil liberties lawyers who have been battling with the government.
Three years ago, the court ruled that the hundreds of prisoners at the U.S. military facility in southern Cuba were entitled to a hearing before a neutral judge to challenge the government's basis for holding them. In a rebuke to the high court, President Bush and the then-Republican-controlled Congress enacted a law to strip these "unlawful enemy combatants" of their right to be heard in the federal courts.
Friday's order may signal that a majority of the justices are prepared to rule that the Constitution's habeas corpus guarantee gives the Guantanamo detainees the right to go to court and contest the government's reason for holding them.
"The Supreme Court, along with the rest of the nation, should be sick and tired of what it's seeing in Guantanamo," said Matthew MacLean, an attorney for four Kuwaiti detainees at the prison. "It's anybody's guess what changed the Supreme Court's mind, but I hope the justices are seeing the discomfort that so many people in this country and abroad have with Guantanamo."
White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe reacted to the justices' announcement by saying: "We did not think that court review at this time was necessary, but we are confident in our legal position."
The prison may be closed before the court acts. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said he would like to move the detainees to another location, and congressional Democrats have threatened to cut off funding for the current facility.
