Out of My Mind

Someone else who believes in a system of law.

Appeals Court Refuses to Transfer Padilla

Dec 22, 4:23 AM (ET)

By TONI LOCY

WASHINGTON (AP) - A government request to transfer terrorism suspect Jose Padilla from military to civilian custody was rejected by an appeals court that said the administration's shifting tactics in the case threatens its credibility with the courts.



The decision, written by Judge J. Michael Luttig, questioned why the administration used one set of facts before the court for 3 1/2 years to justify holding Padilla without charges but used another set to convince a grand jury in Florida to indict him last month.

Luttig said the administration has risked its "credibility before the courts" by appearing to try to keep the Supreme Court from reviewing the extent of the president's power to hold enemy combatants without charges.



Luttig said the Supreme Court must sort out Padilla's fate, either by accepting or rejecting an appeal by his lawyers of the appellate court's decision in September that the president has the authority to order his detention indefinitely.



Luttig also chastised the administration for failing to explain why it is using a different set of allegations against Padilla and forcing the appeals court to rely on media reports about the government's motivations.

The appellate judge pointed out that anonymous government officials were quoted in news reports saying Padilla was charged in Miami because the administration didn't want the Supreme Court to review the appeals court's September decision.



Luttig said the administration's actions leave the impression that Padilla has been held "by mistake," and that its tactics could prove costly.

"These impressions have been left, we fear, at what may ultimately prove to be a substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts, to whom it will one day need to argue again in support of a principle of assertedly like importance and necessity to the one that it seems to abandon today," he wrote.

"While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all of this, it is difficult to imagine what that objective would be."

(Emphasis added.)

The AP neglects to note, though, that the judge is a Republican appointee. Obvioulsy like Fitzgerald, a Republican but not a wingnut.