Court Orders Release of Alleged Dirty Bomber

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Jose Padilla, the alleged “Dirty Bomber,” be released from custody within thirty days.

A divided court, concluded that “the President is without authority from Congress or the Constitution to order the detention and interrogation of Mr. Padilla.” You can read my posts about the Second Circuit’s November 17th hearing on Padilla’s case here and here.

This is an extremely important case, and a shocking result. I have followed the “dirty Bomber” case as a part of my concern about judicial secrecy. I will post more about this case after I have ben able to read and contemplate the decision.

In the meantime this Reuters article offers the most information about it.

Padilla is a suspect in an al Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States. He was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport 18 months ago as he arrived from Pakistan. He was transported to Manhattan federal court system where he was held as a material witness in a federal grand jury terrorism investigation. The Bush administration later classified him as an enemy combatant and he was transferred to a Navy prison in South Carolina.

Federal prosecutors have argued Padilla should not have access to attorneys because they said he posed a threat to national security and defense lawyers would interfere with his interrogation.

The majority and dissenting decisions can be accessed here and here.

UPDATE: This is going to well covered in the blogosphere.

Rantingprofs posts "Process Matters," and makes this overlooked point:

Amidst all the hysteria over what this case could mean for civil liberties (you've heard the arguments, no doubt, that this means that "anyone" could "just" be declared an enemy combatant and locked up incommunicado at the "whim" of the government) what consistently gets overlooked is that the case has been working its way through the court system.

Ed Thibodeau is following this story at Nonplussed with "A victory for due process."

Jessica's Well has posted Jose Padilla.