Attorney General Mukasey's Detainee Policy Speech: Rhetoric vs. Reality

Statement of Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron

July 21, 2008, Washington, DC—"Attorney General Michael Mukasey's speech on the handling of detainees was nothing more than an attempt to conjure up a false sense of urgency to scare Congress into passing needless legislation. Enactment of new legislation now will serve only to bind the next president to the failed policies of the past.

"In Boumediene, the Supreme Court once again stood up to the president and his unconstitutional overreaches. In the two previous decisions, the Bush administration has convinced Congress to undercut the Supreme Court's decision.  This time, Congress should reject the attorney general's call for a frenzied legislative response, and let the federal courts do their job." 

The Implications of Boumediene: Rhetoric vs. Reality

The steps proposed by the attorney general mirror those already been taken in response to the Boumediene decision. The federal courts are disposing of these cases in an organized, methodical, and practical way. 

• Mr. Mukasey suggests that all habeas petitions by Guantanamo detainees should be heard in one district court.  This is already being done. The petitions are all pending in the D.C. District Court, and any petitions filed elsewhere will be transferred to the D.C. District Court.

• Mr. Mukasey suggests that one judge should rule on the preliminary issues in the cases, in order to avoid contradictory decisions.  But Reagan appointee Judge Thomas F. Hogan, a senior judge in the D.C. District Court, has already taken on that role, deciding many preliminary issues in the habeas cases.

• Mr. Mukasey suggests that habeas proceedings should not delay military commissions trials for the few detainees who have been charged under that framework.  But just last week, a federal judge rejected a detainee's petition to delay his military commission trial, which began today.