WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will take up a controversial Bush administration legal policy and decide whether the president has the power to order the military to arrest and hold a civilian in the United States on the basis of suspected ties to terrorists.
The justices voted to hear the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only person who remains in military custody in this country as an "enemy combatant." Administration officials say he came to the United States on a "martyr mission" for Al Qaeda.
The court will hear arguments in March, two months after the Bush administration has left office. The case presents an interesting test for the incoming Barack Obama administration, which could defend the government's handling of Marri's case or change course and prosecute him in criminal court.
"The Supreme Court's decision to grant review will compel the incoming Obama administration to quickly focus on U.S. detention policy," said Sharon Bradford Franklin, a lawyer for the Constitution Project. "We hope that President-elect Obama will resoundingly reject the current administration's breathtaking claim that the United States may hold a civilian in military detention indefinitely."
Marri, a native of Qatar, entered the United States with his family on Sept. 10, 2001, and said he was seeking a master's degree at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. He had earned a bachelor's degree there a decade earlier. Three months later, the FBI arrested him and said agents found on his laptop computer information about cyanide and other poisonous chemicals. Officials said they also learned that he had received payments from Al Qaeda financiers.
At first, the government intended to try Marri on charges of credit card fraud. But in June 2003, President Bush signed an order designating Marri as an "enemy combatant," and he was taken to a military brig in South Carolina. He has been held there in virtual isolation for more than five years.
The Supreme Court will not decide whether Marri is an agent of Al Qaeda. Instead, the justices will decide whether the Bush administration had the legal authority to bypass the nation's civilian laws and to hold a civilian in military custody.
The 5th Amendment says "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," and that constitutional protection has been interpreted to apply to all persons in this country, not just citizens.
