Due Process Of Law

Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan, President Obama's choice to represent his administration before the Supreme Court, told a key Republican senator Tuesday that she believed the government could hold suspected terrorists without trial as war prisoners. She echoed comments by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. during his confirmation hearing last month.

Accused in a 2002 grenade blast that wounded two U.S. soldiers near an Afghan market, Mohammed Jawad was sent as a youth to Guantanamo Bay. Now, under orders by President Obama, he could one day be among detainees whose fate is finally decided by a U.S. court. But in a potential problem, Pentagon officials note that most of the evidence against Jawad comes from his own admissions. And neither he nor any other detainee at the U.S.

Federal authorities are increasingly deporting illegal immigrants through a fast-track program that bypasses court hearings, an effort by the federal government to save money, reduce backlogs and clear detention beds. The number of detainees in California and across the nation who agreed to be deported without first seeing a judge jumped fivefold between 2004 and 2007, from 5,481 to nearly 31,554. In the first half of 2008, 17,445 speedy deportation orders were signed.

Contending that the government had suppressed evidence that could help a young man facing life in prison, a prosecutor has quit the war crimes tribunals here, several military defense lawyers said Wednesday. Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld quit the case -- and the Office of Military Commissions -- after growing increasingly concerned about the lack of due process afforded to Mohammed Jawad and his legal team, according to Michael J. Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel for the commissions.

A federal appeals court Wednesday temporarily blocked a judge's decision to release 17 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into the U.S. In a one-page order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the emergency stay at the request of the Bush administration. The three-judge panel said it would postpone Friday's scheduled release of the detainees at least until late next week to give the government more time to make arguments in the case.

Darrel J. Vandeveld was in despair. The hard-nosed lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a self-described conformist praised by his superiors for his bravery in Iraq, had lost faith in the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunals in which he was a prosecutor. His work was top secret, making it impossible to talk to family or friends. So the devout Catholic -- working away from home -- contacted a priest online.

A Senate panel took the first step Thursday toward again giving foreign prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to go to court and seek their freedom. On a mostly party-line vote of 11 to 8, the Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee said it would restore the right of habeas corpus that had been taken away in recent years by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. "Habeas corpus was recklessly undermined in last year's legislation," said Sen. Patrick J.

In a setback for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court ruled Monday that an alleged Al Qaeda operative arrested in the United States and detained in military custody for four years cannot be held as an enemy combatant. The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ordered Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri released from a South Carolina military brig's isolation cell, where he has been held since President Bush declared him an enemy combatant. U.S.

The U.S. government has violated its own immigrant detention standards, denying some Salvadoran detainees access to legal materials, telephones and attorney visits, a federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled. District Judge Margaret M. Morrow upheld a 1988 injunction mandating that Salvadorans be advised of their rights to apply for political asylum and have access to legal representation.

Lawmakers pressed ahead Wednesday with proposals that would authorize President Bush's domestic spying program, as Senate Intelligence Committee members debated whether to launch an investigation into the controversial surveillance activities. The Senate Intelligence Committee meets today and is expected to vote on a Democratic proposal to investigate the eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.