Enemy Combatant Detainees:
Habeas Corpus Challenges in Federal Court
Jennifer K. Elsea
Legislative Attorney
Michael John Garcia
Legislative Attorney
February 3, 2010
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
RL33180
CRS Report for Congress
P
repared for Members and Committees of Congress

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Enemy Combatant Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in Federal Court

Summary
After the U.S. Supreme Court held that U.S. courts have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241
to hear legal challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, in connection with the war against terrorism (Rasul v. Bush), the Pentagon established
administrative hearings, called “Combatant Status Review Tribunals” (CSRTs), to allow the
detainees to contest their status as enemy combatants, and informed them of their right to pursue
relief in federal court by seeking a writ of habeas corpus. Lawyers subsequently filed dozens of
petitions on behalf of the detainees in the District Court for the District of Columbia, where
district court judges reached inconsistent conclusions as to whether the detainees have any
enforceable rights to challenge their treatment and detention.
Congress subsequently passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) to divest the courts of
jurisdiction to hear some detainees’ challenges by eliminating the federal courts’ statutory
jurisdiction over habeas claims (as well as other causes of action) by aliens detained at
Guantanamo. The DTA provided for limited appeals of CSRT determinations or final decisions of
military commissions. After the Supreme Court rejected the view that the DTA left it without
jurisdiction to review a habeas challenge to the validity of military commissions in the case of
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the 109th Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA)
(P.L. 109-366) to authorize the President to convene military commissions and to amend the DTA
to further reduce detainees’ access to federal courts, including in cases already pending.
In June 2008, the Supreme Court held in the case of Boumediene v. Bush that aliens designated as
enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional privilege of habeas
corpus. The Court also found that MCA § 7, which limited judicial review of executive
determinations of the petitioners’ enemy combatant status to that available under the DTA, did not
provide an adequate habeas substitute and therefore acted as an unconstitutional suspension of
the writ of habeas. The immediate impact of the Boumediene decision is that detainees at
Guantanamo may petition a federal district court for habeas review of the legality and possibly
the circumstances of their detention, perhaps including challenges to the jurisdiction of military
commissions. President Barack Obama’s Executive Order calling for a temporary halt in military
commission proceedings and the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility is likely to have
implications for legal challenges raised by detainees. Later this year, the Supreme Court is
expected to consider arguments in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama as to whether federal habeas
courts have the authority to order the release into the United States of Guantanamo detainees
found to be unlawfully held.
In March 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new definitional standard for the
government’s authority to detain terrorist suspects, which does not use the phrase “enemy
combatant” to refer to persons who may be properly detained. The new standard is similar in
scope to the “enemy combatant” standard used by the Bush Administration to detain terrorist
suspects. The standard would permit the detention of members of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and
associated forces, along with persons who provide “substantial support” to such groups,
regardless of whether such persons were captured away from the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Courts that have considered the Executive’s authority to detain under the AUMF and law of war
have reached differing conclusions as to the scope of this detention authority. In January 2010, a
D.C. Circuit panel held that support for or membership in an AUMF-targeted organization may
constitute a sufficient ground to justify military detention.
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Enemy Combatant Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in Federal Court

Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1
Early Developments in the Detention and Trial of Enemy Combatants Captured in the
“War on Terror” ....................................................................................................................... 4
Rasul v. Bush......................................................................................................................... 5
Combatant Status Review Tribunals ...................................................................................... 7
Pre-Boumediene v. Bush Court Challenges to the Detention Policy .............................................. 9
Khalid v. Bush..................................................................................................................... 10
In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases ...................................................................................... 11
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ........................................................................................................... 12
Jurisdiction ................................................................................................................... 12
Presidential Authority.................................................................................................... 13
The Geneva Conventions and the Law of War ............................................................... 13
Analysis........................................................................................................................ 14
Al-Marri ............................................................................................................................. 15
Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) ..................................................................................... 20
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 ..................................................................................... 22
Provisions Affecting Court Jurisdiction ............................................................................... 22
Provisions Regarding the Geneva Conventions.................................................................... 24
Post-2006 MCA Issues and Developments ................................................................................ 26
Possible Application to U.S. Citizens .................................................................................. 26
DTA Challenges to Detention .............................................................................................. 27
Bismullah v. Gates ........................................................................................................ 28
Parhat v. Gates ............................................................................................................. 30
Boumediene v. Bush .................................................................................................................. 33
Constitutional Right to Habeas ........................................................................................... 34
Adequacy of Habeas Corpus Substitute .............................................................................. 35
Implications of Boumediene ................................................................................................ 37
Executive Order to Close Guantanamo and Halt Military Commission Proceedings................... 38
Redefining U.S. Detention Authority......................................................................................... 39
Constitutional Considerations and Options for Congress............................................................ 42
Scope of Challenges............................................................................................................ 45
The Fact and Length of Detention ................................................................................. 46
Conditions of Detention ................................................................................................ 48
Available Remedy ......................................................................................................... 50
Extraterritorial Scope of Constitutional Writ of Habeas ................................................. 52
Use of Habeas Petitions to Challenge the Jurisdiction of Military Commissions ............ 53
Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 54

Contacts
Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 54

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Introduction
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force
(AUMF), which granted the President the authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force
against those ... [who] planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” against the
United States.1 Soon thereafter, President Bush issued a military order formulating guidelines for
the detention and treatment of foreign belligerents captured in the “war on terror” and
establishing military commissions to try some detainees for violations of the law of war.2
Beginning in early 2002, the United States began transferring suspected foreign belligerents
captured in the “war on terror” to the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for preventive
detention and potential prosecution for any war crimes they may have committed.
In 2004, the Supreme Court issued two key rulings concerning the Executive’s authority to detain
persons in the “war on terror.” In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 3 a majority of the Court found that the 2001
AUMF permitted the preventive detention of enemy combatants captured during hostilities in
Afghanistan, including those who were U.S. citizens. A divided Court found that persons deemed
“enemy combatants” have the right to challenge their detention before a judge or other “neutral
decision-maker.” The Hamdi case concerned the rights of a U.S. citizen detained as an enemy
combatant, and the Court did not decide the extent to which this right also applied to noncitizens
held at Guantanamo and elsewhere. However, on the same day that Hamdi was decided, the Court
issued an opinion in the case of Rasul v. Bush,4 holding that the federal habeas corpus statute, 28
U.S.C. § 2241, provided federal courts with jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions by or
on behalf of persons detained at Guantanamo.
The Court’s rulings in Hamdi and Rasul had two immediate consequences. First, the Department
of Defense (DOD) established Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), an administrative
process to determine whether a detainee at Guantanamo was an “enemy combatant.” Second, the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia began to hear the dozens of habeas cases filed on
behalf of the detainees, with different judges reaching conflicting conclusions as to whether the
detainees had any enforceable rights available other than the bare right to petition for habeas.
After the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear a challenge by one of the detainees to his trial
by military tribunal, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA)5. The DTA
requires uniform standards for interrogation of persons in the custody of the DOD, and expressly
bans cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees in the custody of any U.S. agency. At
the same time, however, it divested the courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges by those detained
at Guantanamo Bay based on their treatment or living conditions. The DTA also eliminated the
federal courts’ statutory jurisdiction over habeas claims by aliens challenging their detention at
Guantanamo Bay, but provided for limited appeals of status determinations made pursuant to the
DOD procedures for CSRTs, along with final decisions by military commissions.

1 P.L. 107-40.
2 Order on Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, November 13, 2001,
66 Federal Register 57833 (2001)(hereinafter “MO” or “military order”).
3 542 U.S. 507 (2004).
4 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
5 P.L. 109-148, Title X; P.L. 109-163, Title XIV.
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However, in the 2006 case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,6 the Supreme Court interpreted the provision
eliminating federal habeas jurisdiction as being inapplicable to cases that were pending at the
time the DTA was enacted, permitting it to review the validity of military commissions
established pursuant to President Bush’s 2001 military order. The Court held that the military
tribunals established by the President did not comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice
(UCMJ) or the law of war which the UCMJ incorporates, including the 1949 Geneva
Conventions. In response to the Hamdan ruling, Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act
of 2006 (“MCA” or “2006 MCA”).7 The act authorized the President to convene military
commissions to try “unlawful alien combatants” for war crimes without complying with the parts
of the UCMJ the earlier system was said to violate, and it also established procedural
requirements for the commissions. Finally, the MCA expressly eliminated court jurisdiction over
all pending and future causes of action by detainees, including habeas review, with the exception
of the limited review process established under the DTA.
The complete elimination of habeas corpus review by Congress compelled the courts to address
directly an issue they had avoided reaching in earlier cases: Does the constitutional writ of habeas
corpus extend to noncitizens held at Guantanamo? The Constitution’s Suspension Clause
prohibits the suspension of habeas corpus except when public safety requires it in the case of
invasion or surrender. The MCA did not purport to be a suspension of habeas, and the
government did not make such a claim to the courts. Instead, the government argued that
noncitizens detained at Guantanamo are entitled to no constitutional protections, including the
privilege of habeas corpus. Therefore, it was argued, denying these persons access to habeas
review would not run afoul of the Suspension Clause. In the 2008 case Boumediene v. Bush, the
Court rejected this argument in a 5-4 opinion, and ruled that the constitutional privilege of habeas
extends to Guantanamo detainees and cannot be extinguished by statute unless an adequate
substitute is provided.8
As a result of the Boumediene decision, detainees currently held at Guantanamo may petition for
habeas review of their designation and detention as enemy combatants. Several legal issues
remain unsettled, including the scope of habeas review available to detainees, the remedy
available for those persons found to be unlawfully held by the United States, and the extent to
which other constitutional provisions extend to noncitizens held at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
Some of these issues may be decided by Supreme Court later this term in the case of Kiyemba v.
Obama, which concerns the authority of habeas courts to order the release of Guantanamo
detainees into the United States, when those detainees are found to be unlawfully held and the
government is unable to effectuate their release to a foreign country. The judicial process
established by the DTA was effectively nullified by a D.C. Circuit’s ruling in January 2009
interpreting the Boumediene decision,9 although Congress has not officially repealed it.10

6 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006).
7 P.L. 109-366.
8 Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. __, 128 S.Ct. 2229 (2008).
9 Bismullah v. Gates, 551 F.3d 1068 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
10P.L. 111-84, § 1803(b), 123 Stat. 2612, struck section 1005(e)(3) of the “Detainee Treatment Act of 2005” (title X of
P.L. 109-359; 10 U.S.C. 801 note) pertaining to appellate review of military commission decisions, but left intact
paragraph 2, pertaining to appellate review of CSRT proceedings, as well as language similar to paragraph 3 passed as
section 1405(e)(3) of title XIV of P.L. 109-163, which continues to refer to pre-MCA military commissions. (The
reference to P.L. 109-359 should probably be P.L. 109-148).
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On January 22, 2009, President Obama issued an Executive Order requiring that the Guantanamo
detention facility be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than a year from the date of the
Order.11 The Order further requires specified officials to review all Guantanamo detentions to
assess whether the detainee should continue to be held by the United States, be transferred or
released to a third country, or be prosecuted by the United States for criminal offenses.12 During
the review process, the Secretary of Defense was required to take steps to ensure that all
proceedings before military commissions and the United States Court of Military Commission
Review were halted.13 Although the imposed deadline for closing the Guantanamo detention
facility was not met, the Obama Administration maintains that it intends to close the facility as
expeditiously as possible. The closure of the Guantanamo detention facility and its resulting
effects could have implications for legal challenges raised by detainees, particularly if detainees
are brought to the United States, where they would arguably have a more clearly defined
entitlement to additional constitutional protections.14
In March 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new definitional standard for the
government’s authority to detain terrorist suspects, which no longer employs the phrase “enemy
combatant” to refer to persons who may be properly detained,15 although the new standard is
largely similar in scope to the “enemy combatant” standard used earlier. The Obama
Administration standard would permit the detention of members of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and
associated forces, along with persons who provide “substantial support” (rather than merely
“support”) to such groups, regardless of whether these individuals were captured away from the
battlefield in Afghanistan.16 The Obama Administration indicated that this definitional standard
does “not rely on the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief independent of Congress’s
specific authorization.”17
The scope of the Executive’s detention authority has been subject to ongoing litigation and
conflicting rulings. As of January, 2010, courts have ruled that nine detainees are lawfully held
pursuant to the AUMF while 32 were held to be (or were conceded by the government to be) held
without authorization.18 In January 2010, a D.C. Circuit panel held in the case of Al-Bihani v.
Obama19 that support for or membership in an AUMF-targeted organization may be
independently sufficient to justify military detention, without proof that the detainee committed
any hostile act. In discussing the scope of the Executive’s detention authority, the panel applied

11 Executive Order 13492, “Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and
Closure of Detention Facilities,” 74 Federal Register 4897, January 22, 2009.
12 Id. at § 4.
13 Id. at § 7.
14 For further discussion, see CRS Report R40139, Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal Issues, by
Michael John Garcia et al.
15 Department of Justice, “Department of Justice Withdraws ‘Enemy Combatant’ Definition for Guantanamo
Detainees,” press release, March 13, 2009, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/March/09-ag-232.html (hereinafter “DOJ
Press Release”); In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, Respondents’ Memorandum Regarding the Government’s
Detention Authority Relative to Detainees Held At Guantanamo Bay, No. 08-0442, filed March 13, 2009 (D.D.C.)
(hereinafter “Detention Authority Memorandum”).
16 Detention Authority Memorandum, supra footnote 15, at *7-8.
17 DOJ Press Release, supra footnote 15.
18 For a list of cases as well as a discussion of broader issues, see Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney & Rabea
Benhalim, The Emerging Law of Detention: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking, Brookings Institute,
January 22, 2010, available at http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0122_guantanamo_wittes_chesney.aspx.
19 Al-Bihani v. Obama, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2010).
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the standard that had been used by the Bush Administration rather than the slightly more limited
standard applied by the Obama Administration, and disavowed the view that international law has
relevance to the determination. The significance of this policy change and the circuit court’s
ruling remains to be seen.
Also in January 2010, the Obama Administration reportedly completed its assessment of the
detainees, determining that about 50 of the detainees held there will continue to be held without
trial; that around 35 detainees will be prosecuted in military commission or federal court; and that
suitable countries have been found to take the remaining 110 detainees.20 However, the transfer of
30 detainees of Yemeni nationality back to Yemen was stymied because an Al Qaeda affiliate in
Yemen is suspected to have been behind the Christmas 2009 bombing attempt.21 Additionally,
Congress has balked at plans to bring detainees to the United States for continued detention or for
trial.
This report provides an overview of the early judicial developments and the establishment of
CSRT procedures; summarizes selected court cases related to the detentions and the use of
military commissions; and discusses the Detainee Treatment Act, as amended by the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 and the Military Commissions Act of 2009, analyzing its effects on
detainee-related litigation in federal court. The report summarizes the Supreme Court’s decision
in Boumediene invalidating Congress’s efforts to revoke the courts’ habeas jurisdiction, and
discusses some remaining issues and subsequent developments. For discussion of legislation
introduced in the 111th Congress concerning detainees, see CRS Report R40754, Guantanamo
Detention Center: Legislative Activity in the 111th Congress, by Anna C. Henning. For legislation
related to habeas corpus rights of detainees, see CRS Report R41011, Habeas Corpus Legislation
in the 111th Congress, by Charles Doyle.
Early Developments in the Detention and Trial of
Enemy Combatants Captured in the “War on Terror”
The Bush Administration determined in February 2002 that Taliban detainees are covered under
the Geneva Conventions,22 while Al Qaeda detainees are not,23 but that none of the detainees
qualifies for the status of prisoner of war (POW).24 The Administration deemed all of them to be
“unlawful enemy combatants,” and claimed the right to detain them without trial or continue to
hold them in preventive detention even if they are acquitted of criminal charges by a military
tribunal. Fifteen of the detainees had been determined by the President to be subject to his
military order (“MO”) of November 13, 2001,25 making them eligible for trial by military

20 See Charlie Savage, Detainees Will Still Be Held, but Not Tried, Official Says, NY TIMES, Jan. 22, 2010.
21 Id.
22 The two most relevant conventions are the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,
August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3317 (hereinafter “GPW”); and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3516 (hereinafter “GC”).
23 White House Memorandum, “Humane Treatment of al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees” (February 7, 2002), available
at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/020702bush.pdf.
24 For more history and analysis, see CRS Report RL31367, Treatment of “Battlefield Detainees” in the War on
Terrorism, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
25 Order on Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War against Terrorism, November 13, 2001,
66 Federal Register 57833 (2001)(hereinafter “MO” or “military order”).
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commission for war crimes offenses.26 The Supreme Court, however, found that the procedural
rules established by the Department of Defense to govern the military commissions were not
established in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).27 The following
sections trace the judicial developments with respect to the detention of alleged enemy
combatants.
Rasul v. Bush28
Petitioners were two Australians and twelve Kuwaitis (a petition on behalf of two U.K. citizens
was mooted by their release) who were captured during hostilities in Afghanistan and were being
held in military custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The Bush Administration
argued, and the court below had agreed, that under the 1950 Supreme Court case Johnson v.
Eisentrager,29 “‘the privilege of litigation’ does not extend to aliens in military custody who have
no presence in ‘any territory over which the United States is sovereign.’” The Supreme Court
distinguished Rasul by noting that Eisentrager concerned the constitutional right to habeas
corpus rather than the right as implemented by statute. The Rasul Court did not reach the
constitutional issue, but found authority for federal court jurisdiction in 28 U.S.C. § 2241, which
grants courts the authority to hear applications for habeas corpus “within their respective
jurisdictions,” by any person who claims to be held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or
laws or treaties of the United States.”30
The Court also declined to read the statute to vary its geographical scope according to the
citizenship of the detainee. Justice Kennedy, in a concurring opinion, would have found
jurisdiction over the Guantanamo detainees based on the facts that Guantanamo is effectively a
U.S. territory and is “far removed from any hostilities,” and that the detainees are “being held
indefinitely without the benefit of any legal proceeding to determine their status.” Noting that the
Writ of Habeas Corpus (“Writ”) has evolved as the primary means to challenge executive
detentions, especially those without trial, the Court held that jurisdiction over habeas petitions
does not turn on sovereignty over the territory where detainees are held. Even if the habeas
statute were presumed not to extend extraterritorially, as the government urged, the Court found
that the “complete jurisdiction and control” the United States exercises under its lease with Cuba
would suffice to bring the detainees within the territorial and historical scope of the Writ.

26 For an analysis of the military commission rules, see CRS Report RL33688, The Military Commissions Act of 2006:
Analysis of Procedural Rules and Comparison with Previous DOD Rules and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, by
Jennifer K. Elsea.
27Chapter 47 of title 10, U.S. Code, 10 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.
28 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
29 339 U.S. 763 (1950).
30 Rasul, 542 U.S. at 478-79. When Eisentrager was decided in 1950, the Rasul majority found, the “respective
jurisdictions” of federal district courts were understood to extend no farther than the geographical boundaries of the
districts (citing Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U.S. 188 (1948)). According to the Court, that understanding was altered by a line
of cases, recognized in Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484 (1973), as overruling the statutory
interpretation that had established the “inflexible jurisdictional rule” upon which Eisentrager was implicitly based.
Justice Scalia, with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, dissented, arguing that the habeas statute on its face
requires a federal district court with territorial jurisdiction over the detainee. The dissenters would have read Braden as
distinguishing Ahrens rather than overruling it. For more analysis of the Rasul opinion, see CRS Report RS21884, The
Supreme Court 2003 Term: Summary and Analysis of Opinions Related to Detainees in the War on Terrorism, by
Jennifer K. Elsea.
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Without expressly overruling Eisentrager, the Court distinguished the cases at issue to find
Eisentrager inapplicable. Eisentrager listed six factors that precluded those petitioners from
seeking habeas relief: each petitioner “(a) is an enemy alien; (b) has never been or resided in the
United States; (c) was captured outside of our territory and there held in military custody as a
prisoner of war; (d) was tried and convicted by a Military Commission sitting outside the United
States; (e) for offenses against laws of war committed outside the United States; (f) and is at all
times imprisoned outside the United States.”31 The Rasul Court noted that the Guantanamo
petitioners, in contrast, “are not nationals of countries at war with the United States, and they
deny that they have engaged in or plotted acts of aggression against the United States; they have
never been afforded access to any tribunal, much less charged with and convicted of wrongdoing;
and for more than two years they have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States
exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control.”
As to the petitioners’ claims based on statutes other than the habeas statute, which included the
federal question statute32 as well as the Alien Tort Statute,33 the Court applied the same reasoning
to conclude that nothing precluded the detainees from bringing such claims before a federal
court.34
The Court’s opinion left many questions unanswered. It did not clarify which of the Eisentrager
(or Rasul) factors would control under a different set of facts.35 The opinion did not address
whether persons detained by the U.S. military abroad in locations where the United States does
not exercise full jurisdiction and control would have access to U.S. courts. The Hamdan opinion
seems to indicate that a majority of the Court regarded Eisentrager as a ruling denying relief on
the merits rather than a ruling precluding jurisdiction altogether.36 Under this view, it may be
argued, there was no statutory bar precluding detainees in U.S. custody overseas from petitioning
for habeas relief in U.S. courts, although it may be substantially more difficult for such prisoners
to identify a statutory or constitutional infraction that would enable them to prevail on the merits.
The Court did not decide the merits of the petitions, although in a footnote the majority opined
that “Petitioners’ allegations—that, although they have engaged neither in combat nor in acts of
terrorism against the United States, they have been held in Executive detention for more than two
years in territory subject to the long-term, exclusive jurisdiction and control of the United States,
without access to counsel and without being charged with any wrongdoing—unquestionably
describe ‘custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.’” The
opinion left to lower courts such issues as whether the detentions are authorized by Congress,

31 Rasul, 542 U.S. at 475 (citing Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 777).
32 28 U.S.C. § 1331(“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the
Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”).
33 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only,
committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”).
34 Rasul, 542 U.S. at 484 (“nothing in Eisentrager or in any of our other cases categorically excludes aliens detained in
military custody outside the United States from the ‘privilege of litigation’ in U.S. courts”).
35 The Court noted that “Eisentrager made quite clear that all six of the facts critical to its disposition were relevant
only to the question of the prisoners’ constitutional entitlement to habeas corpus.” Rasul, 542 U.S. at 476 (emphasis
original).
36 Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 626 (characterizing the Eisentrager decision, 339 U.S. 763, 790(1950), as having rejected the
treaty claim “on the merits”). Justice Kennedy’s Boumediene opinion rejected the view that Eisentrager imposed a
strict jurisdictional test based solely on the sovereignty of the territory involved, finding instead that all of the “practical
considerations” considered in the opinion were integral to the ultimate holding. Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2257.
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who may be detained and what evidence might be adduced to determine whether a person is an
enemy combatant, or whether the Geneva Conventions afford the detainees any protections. The
Court did not address the extent to which Congress might alter federal court jurisdiction over
detainees’ habeas petitions, but Boumediene appears to foreclose the option of eliminating it
completely, at least without an adequate substitute procedure. This issue is discussed more fully
below.
Combatant Status Review Tribunals
In response to Supreme Court decisions in 2004 related to “enemy combatants,” the Pentagon
established procedures for Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), based on the procedures
the Army uses to determine POW status during traditional wars.37 Detainees who are determined
not to be enemy combatants are to be transferred to their country of citizenship or otherwise dealt
with “consistent with domestic and international obligations and U.S. foreign policy.”38 CSRTs
confirmed the status of at least 520 enemy combatants. Any new detainees that might be
transported to Guantanamo Bay would go before a CSRT. The CSRTs are not empowered to
determine whether the enemy combatants are unlawful or lawful, which led two military
commission judges to hold that CSRT determinations are inadequate to form the basis for the
jurisdiction of military commissions.39 Military commissions must now determine whether a
defendant is an unlawful enemy combatant in order to assume jurisdiction.40
CSRTs are administrative rather than adversarial, but each detainee has an opportunity to present
“reasonably available” evidence and witnesses41 to a panel of three commissioned officers to try
to demonstrate that the detainee does not meet the criteria to be designated as an “enemy
combatant,” defined as “an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaida forces,
or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition

37 See Department of Defense (DOD) Fact Sheet, “Combatant Status Review Tribunals,” available at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2004/d20040707factsheet.pdf. CSRT proceedings are modeled on the procedures
of Army Regulation (AR) 190-8, Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees
(1997), which establishes administrative procedures to determine the status of detainees under the Geneva Conventions
and prescribes their treatment in accordance with international law. It does not include a category for “unlawful” or
“enemy” combatants, who would presumably be covered by the other categories.
38 See DOD Press Release, “Combatant Status Review Tribunal Order Issued” (June 7, 2004), available at
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040707-0992.html; Memorandum from the Deputy Secretary of Defense
to the Secretary of the Navy, Order Establishing Combatant Status Review Tribunal, July 7, 2004 (hereinafter “CSRT
Order”), available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2004/d20040707review.pdf; Memorandum from Deputy
Secretary of Defense, Implementation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals Procedures for Enemy Combatants
Detained at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 14, 2006 (hereinafter “CSRT Implementing Directive”),
available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2006/d20060809CSRTProcedures.pdf.
39 See Josh White and Shailagh Murray, Guantanamo Ruling Renews The Debate Over Detainees, WASH. POST, June 6,
2007, at A3.
40 United States v. Khadr, No. 07-001, (U.S.C.M.C.R. September 7, 2007) (finding CSRT designation alone insufficient
to confer jurisdiction on military commission, but holding that the military commission judge has the inherent authority
to determine the status of the accused). The Military Commissions Act of 2009 amended the MCA accordingly. See 10
U.S.C. § 948d (“A military commission is a competent tribunal to make a finding sufficient for jurisdiction.”).
41 Witnesses from within the U.S. Armed Forces are not “reasonably available” if their participation, as determined by
their commanders, would adversely affect combat or support operations. CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote
38, at encl. 1, para. G(9)(a). All other witnesses, apparently including those from other agencies, are not “reasonably
available” if they decline to attend or cannot be reached, or if security considerations prevents their presence. Id. at
encl. 1, para. G(9)(b). It is unclear who makes the security determination. Non-government witnesses appear at their
own expense. Testimony is under oath and may be provided in writing or by telephone or video.
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partners[,] ... [including] any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly
supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.”42 Each detainee is represented by a military
officer (not a member of the Judge Advocate General (“JAG”) Corps)43 and may elect to
participate in the hearing or remain silent.44 The government’s evidence is presented by the
recorder, who is a military officer, preferably a judge advocate.45
The CSRTs are not bound by the rules of evidence that would apply in court, and the
government’s evidence is presumed to be “genuine and accurate.”46 The government is required
to present all of its relevant evidence, including evidence that tends to negate the detainee’s
designation, to the tribunal.47 The CSRT is required to assess, “to the extent practicable, whether
any statement derived from or relating to such detainee was obtained as a result of coercion and
the probative value, if any, of any such statement.”48 Unclassified summaries of relevant evidence
may be provided to the detainee.49 The detainee’s personal representative may view classified
information and comment on it to the tribunal to aid in its determination50 but does not act as an
advocate for the detainee.51 If the tribunal determines that the preponderance of the evidence is
insufficient to support a continued designation as “enemy combatant” and its recommendation is
approved through the chain of command, the detainee will be informed of that decision upon
finalization of transportation arrangements (or earlier, if the task force commander deems it
appropriate).52
In March 2002, the Pentagon announced plans to create a separate process for periodically
reviewing the status of detainees.53 The process, similar to the CSRT process, affords persons
detained at Guantanamo Bay the opportunity to present to a review board, on at least an annual
basis while hostilities are ongoing, information to show that the detainee is no longer a threat or
that it is in the interest of the United States and its allies to release the prisoner. If new

42 CSRT Order, supra footnote 38, at 1.
43 CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote 38, at encl. 1, para. B.
44 Id. at encl. 1, para. F.
45 Id at encl. 1, para. C(2). In an affidavit submitted in DTA litigation, the government acknowledged that it has not
utilized the procedures set forth in the CSRT Implementing Directive. See Bismullah v. Gates, 501 F.3d 178, 194-95
(D.C. Cir. 2007) (order on motions) (Rogers, J. Concurring) (citing differences between written procedures and those
described by Rear Admiral James M. McGarrah in the Boumediene case). Rather than having a JAG officer in the rank
of O-3 or above compile government information, the Department of Defense has utilized research, collection, and
coordination teams to gather information to be assessed by a “case writer” who has “received approximately two weeks
of training.” Id. at 94. Thus, the reporter assigned to represent the government’s case may not have had access to all
government information.
46 CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote 38 , at encl. 1, para. G(7) & (11).
47 Id. at encl. 1, para. G(8).
48 Id. at encl. 10.
49 Id. at encl. 1, para. E(3)(a).
50 Id. at encl. 1, para. H(7).
51 Id. at encl. 2, para. D (the personal representative is required to explain to the represented detainee that he or she is
neither the attorney or advocate for the detainee, and that any information provided by the detainee is not confidential).
52 Id. at encl. 1, para. I(9)-(10).
53 See DOD Press Release, “DoD Announces Draft Detainee Review Policy” (March 3, 2004), available at
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040303-0403.html; Memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Revised Implementation of Administrative Review Procedures for Enemy Combatants Detained at U.S. Navy Base,
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (July 14, 2006), available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2006/
d20060809ARBProceduresMemo.pdf.
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information with a bearing on the detainee’s classification as an “enemy combatant” comes to
light, a new CSRT may be ordered using the same procedures as described above.54 The
detainee’s State of nationality may be allowed, national security concerns permitting, to submit
information on behalf of its national.
Pre-Boumediene v. Bush Court Challenges to the
Detention Policy
While the Supreme Court clarified in Rasul (and later Boumediene, discussed infra) that detainees
presently held at Guantanamo have recourse to federal courts to challenge their detention, the
extent to which they may enforce any rights they may have under the Geneva Conventions and
other law continues to remain unclear. Prior to the enactment of the DTA provisions eliminating
habeas review, the Justice Department argued primarily that Rasul v. Bush merely decided the
issue of jurisdiction, but that the 1950 Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. Eisentrager55
remained applicable to limit the relief to which the detainees may be entitled. While more than
one district judge from the D.C. Circuit agreed,56 others did not, holding for example that
detainees have the right to the assistance of an attorney.57 One judge found that a detainee has the
right to be treated as a POW until a “competent tribunal” decides otherwise,58 but the appellate
court reversed. The following sections summarize the three most important decisions prior to the
enactment of the 2006 MCA, including the cases that eventually reached the Supreme Court as
Boumediene v. Bush and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had
ordered these cases dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on the basis of the MCA,59 but the Supreme
Court reversed in both its Hamdan and Boumediene decisions, returning the cases to the district
court for consideration on the merits. Also discussed is a Fourth Circuit case involving an alien,
al-Marri, arrested in the United States and subsequently held in military custody as an enemy
combatant. The Supreme Court initially granted certiorari to review the appellate court’s
decision.60 However, before the Court could consider the merits of the case, the government
requested that the Court authorize al-Marri’s release from military custody and transfer to civilian
authorities to face criminal charges. The Court granted the government’s request, vacated the
appellate court’s earlier judgment, and transferred the case back to the lower court with orders to
dismiss it as moot.

54 CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote 38, at encl. 10 (implementing Detainee Treatment Act provisions).
55 339 U.S. 763 (1950) (holding that the federal courts did not have jurisdiction to hear a petition on behalf of German
citizens who had been convicted by U.S. military commissions in China because the writ of habeas corpus was not
available to “enemy alien[s], who at no relevant time and in no stage of [their] captivity [have] been within [the court’s]
jurisdiction”).
56 Khalid v. Bush, 355 F. Supp. 2d 311 (D.D.C. 2005); Hamdan v. Rumsfed, 464 F. Supp.2d 9 (D.D.C. 2006).
57 Al Odah v. United States, 346 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2004).
58 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 344 F. Supp. 2d 152 (D.D.C. 2004), rev’d 415 F.3d 33 (D.C. Cir.), rev’d 548 U.S. 557 (2006).
59 Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
60 129 S.Ct. 680 (U.S. 2008). Al-Marri also petitioned separately for relief from certain conditions of detention. Al-
Marri v. Gates, Case No. 05-2259 (D.S.C. filed March 13, 2008). In March 2009, shortly after his transfer to civilian
custody, Al-Marri filed with the court a notice of voluntary dismissal of the case.
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Khalid v. Bush61
Seven detainees, all of whom had been captured outside of Afghanistan, sought relief from their
detention at the Guantanamo Bay facility. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon agreed with the
Bush Administration that Congress, pursuant to the 2001 AUMF, granted the President the
authority to detain foreign enemy combatants outside the United States for the duration of the war
against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and that the courts have virtually no power to review the
conditions under which such prisoners are held. Noting that the prisoners had been captured and
detained pursuant to the President Bush’s military order,62 Judge Leon agreed with the
government that “(1) non-resident aliens detained under [such] circumstances have no rights
under the Constitution; (2) no existing federal law renders their custody unlawful; (3) no legally
binding treaty is applicable; and (4) international law is not binding under these circumstances.”63
Judge Leon rejected the petitioners’ contention that their arrest outside of Afghanistan and away
from any active battlefield meant that they could not be “enemy combatants” within the meaning
of the law of war, finding instead that the AUMF contains no geographical boundaries,64 and
gives the President virtually unlimited authority to exercise his war power wherever enemy
combatants are found.65 The circumstances behind the off-battlefield captures did, however,
apparently preclude the petitioners from claiming their detentions violate the Geneva
Conventions.66 Other treaties put forth by the petitioners were found to be unavailing because of
their non-self-executing nature.67
The court declined to evaluate whether the conditions of detention were unlawful. Judge Leon
concluded that “[w]hile a state of war does not give the President a ‘blank check,’ and the courts
must have some role when individual liberty is at stake, any role must be limited when, as here,
there is an ongoing armed conflict and the individuals challenging their detention are non-resident
aliens.”68 He dismissed all seven petitions, ruling that “until Congress and the President act

61 355 F. Supp. 2d 311 (D.D.C. 2005), vacated and dismissed sub nom. Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir.
2007), rev’d 553 U.S. __, 128 S.Ct. 2229 (2008).
62 Although the MO authorized detention as well as trial by military commissions, only fifteen of the detainees were
formally designated as subject to the MO.
63 355 F. Supp. 2d at 314.
64 Id. at 320.
65 Id. at 318. Judge Leon wrote:
The President’s ability to make the decisions necessary to effectively prosecute a Congressionally
authorized armed conflict must be interpreted expansively. Indeed, the Constitution does not
delegate to Congress the power to “conduct” or to “make” war; rather, Congress has been given the
power to “declare” war. This critical distinction lends considerable support to the President’s
authority to make the operational and tactical decisions necessary during an ongoing conflict.
Moreover, there can be no doubt that the President’s power to act at a time of armed conflict is at
its strongest when Congress has specifically authorized the President to act.
66 Id. at 326.
67 Id. at 327. It may be argued that the habeas statute itself (28 U.S.C. § 2241), which authorizes challenges of
detention based on treaty violations, provided a means for private enforcement, at least prior to its amendment by the
2006 MCA. See Eisentrager, 339 U.S. at 789 (while noting that the 1929 Geneva Convention did not provide for
private enforcement, considering but rejecting the habeas claim that the treaty vitiated jurisdiction of military
commission).
68 Id. at 330 (citations omitted).
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further, there is ... no viable legal theory under international law by which a federal court could
issue a writ.”
On appeal, the Khalid case was consolidated with In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases as
Boumediene v. Bush.
In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases69
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green interpreted Rasul more broadly, finding that the detainees
do have rights under the U.S. Constitution and international treaties, and thus denied the
government’s motion to dismiss the eleven challenges before the court. Specifically, Judge Green
held that the detainees are entitled to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment, and that the
CSRT procedures do not meet that standard. Interpreting the history of Supreme Court rulings on
the availability of constitutional rights in territories under the control of the American government
(though not part of its sovereign territory), Judge Green concluded that the inquiry turns on the
fundamental nature of the constitutional rights being asserted rather than the citizenship of the
person asserting them. Accepting that the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process
of law is a fundamental constitutional right, the judge applied a balancing test to determine what
process is due in light of the government’s significant interest in safeguarding national security.70
Judge Green rejected the government’s stance that the CSRTs provided more than sufficient due
process for the detainees. Instead, she identified two categories of defects. She objected to the
CSRTs’ failure to provide the detainees with access to material evidence upon which the tribunal
affirmed their “enemy combatant” status and the failure to permit the assistance of counsel to
compensate for the lack of access. These circumstances, she said, deprived detainees of a
meaningful opportunity to challenge the evidence against them.
Second, in particular cases, the judge found that the CSRTs’ handling of accusations of torture
and the vague and potentially overbroad definition of “enemy combatant” could violate the due
process rights of detainees. Citing detainees’ statements and news reports of abuse, Judge Green
noted that the possibility that evidence was obtained involuntarily from the accused or from other
witnesses, whether by interrogators at Guantanamo or by foreign intelligence officials elsewhere,
could make such evidence unreliable and thus constitutionally inadmissible as a basis on which to
determine whether a detainee is an enemy combatant. Judge Green objected to the definition of
“enemy combatant” because it appears to cover “individuals who never committed a belligerent
act or who never directly supported hostilities against the U.S. or its allies.” She noted that
government counsel had, in response to a set of hypothetical questions, stated that the following
could be treated as enemy combatants under the AUMF: “[a] little old lady in Switzerland who
writes checks to what she thinks is a charity that helps orphans in Afghanistan but [what] really is
a front to finance al-Qaeda activities, a person who teaches English to the son of an al Qaeda
member, and a journalist who knows the location of Osama Bin Laden but refuses to disclose it to
protect her source.”71 Judge Green stated that the indefinite detention of a person solely because
of his contacts with individuals or organizations tied to terrorism, and not due to any direct

69 355 F. Supp. 2d 443 (D.D.C. 2005), vacated and dismissed sub nom. Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir.
2007), rev’d Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. __, 128 S.Ct. 2229 (2008).
70 Id. at 465 (citing Hamdi v. Rumsfeld).
71 Id. at 475 (internal citations omitted).
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involvement in terrorist activities, would violate due process even if such detention were found to
be authorized by the AUMF.72
This case was consolidated with the Khalid decision and heard as Boumediene v. Bush by the
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and on appeal, the Supreme Court.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan and is alleged to have worked for
Osama Bin Laden as a bodyguard and driver, brought this challenge to the lawfulness of the
Secretary of Defense’s plan to try him for alleged war crimes before a military commission,73
arguing that the military commission rules and procedures were inconsistent with the UCMJ74 and
that he had the right to be treated as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions.75 U.S.
District Judge Robertson agreed, finding no inherent authority in the President as Commander-in-
Chief of the Armed Forces to create such tribunals outside of the existing statutory authority, with
which the military commission rules did not comply. He also concluded that the Geneva
Conventions apply to the whole of the conflict in Afghanistan, including under their protections
all persons detained in connection with the hostilities there,76 and that Hamdan was thus entitled
to be treated as a prisoner of war until his status was determined to be otherwise by a competent
tribunal, in accordance with article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention (prisoners of war).
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that the Geneva Conventions are not judicially
enforceable. Judge Williams wrote a concurring opinion, construing Common Article 3 to apply
to any conflict with a non-state actor,77 without regard to the geographical confinement of such a
conflict within the borders of a signatory state. The Circuit Court interpreted the UCMJ language
to mean that military commission rules have only to be consistent with those articles of the UCMJ
that refer specifically to military commissions, and therefore need not be uniform with the rules
that apply to courts-martial. After the appellate court decision was handed down, Congress passed
the DTA, which revoked federal court jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions and other
causes of action brought by Guantanamo detainees. (The provisions of the DTA are discussed in
greater detail infra.) The Supreme Court nevertheless granted review and reversed.
Jurisdiction
Before reaching the merits of the case, the Supreme Court declined to accept the government’s
argument that Congress, by passing the DTA, had stripped the Court of its jurisdiction to review
habeas corpus challenges by or on behalf of Guantanamo detainees whose petitions had already
been filed.78 The Court also declined to dismiss the appeal as urged by the government on the

72 Id. at 476.
73 344 F. Supp. 2d 152 (D.D.C. 2004), 415 F.3d 33 (D.C. Cir. 2005), rev’d 548 U.S. 557 (2006).
74 10 U.S.C. §§ 801, et seq.
75 There are four Conventions, the most relevant of which is The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of
Prisoners of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3317 (hereinafter “GPW”).
76 344 F. Supp. 2d at 161.
77 GPW art. 3. For a discussion of Common Article 3, see CRS Report RL31367, Treatment of “Battlefield Detainees”
in the War on Terrorism, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
78Hamdan, 548 U.S.at 583-584. To resolve the question, the majority employed canons of statutory interpretation
(continued...)
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basis that federal courts should abstain from intervening in cases before military tribunals that
have not been finally decided,79 noting the dissimilarities between military commission trials and
ordinary courts-martial of service members pursuant to procedures established by Congress.80
The government’s argument that the petitioner had no rights conferred by the Geneva
Conventions that could be adjudicated in federal court likewise did not persuade the Court to
dismiss the case. Regardless of whether the Geneva Conventions provide rights enforceable in
Article III courts, the Court found that Congress, by incorporating the “law of war” into UCMJ
article 21,81 brought the Geneva Conventions within the scope of law to be applied by courts.
Justice Scalia, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, dissented, arguing that the DTA should be
interpreted to preclude the Court’s review.
Presidential Authority
With respect to the authority to create the military commissions, the Court held that any power to
create them must flow from the Constitution and must be among those “powers granted jointly to
the President and Congress in time of war.”82 It disagreed with the government’s position that
Congress had authorized the commissions either when it passed the AUMF83 or the DTA.
Although the Court assumed that the AUMF activated the President’s war powers, it did not view
the AUMF as expanding the President’s powers beyond the authorization set forth in the UCMJ.
The Court also noted that the DTA, while recognizing the existence of military commissions,
does not specifically authorize them. At most, these statutes “acknowledge a general Presidential
authority to convene military commissions in circumstances where justified under the
‘Constitution and laws,’ including the law of war.”84
The Geneva Conventions and the Law of War
The habeas corpus statute permits those detained under U.S. authority to challenge their
detention on the basis that it violates any statute, the Constitution, or a treaty.85 The D.C. Circuit
nevertheless held that the Geneva Conventions are never enforceable in federal courts.86 The

(...continued)
supplemented by legislative history, avoiding the question of whether the withdrawal of the Court’s jurisdiction would
constitute a suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, or whether it would amount to impermissible “court-stripping.”
Justice Scalia, joined by Justices Alito and Thomas in his dissent, interpreted the DTA as a revocation of jurisdiction.
79 Id. at 577-578. The court below had also rejected this argument, 413 F.3d 33, 36 (D.C. Cir. 2005).
80 See id. (stating that the bodies established by the Department of Defense to review the decisions of military
commissions “clearly lack the structural insulation from military influence that characterizes the Court of Appeals for
the Armed Forces.... ”).
81 10 U.S.C. § 821 (“The provisions of [the UCMJ] conferring jurisdiction upon courts-martial do not deprive military
commissions, provost courts, or other military tribunals of concurrent jurisdiction with respect to offenders or offenses
that by statute or by the law of war may be tried by military commissions, provost courts, or other military tribunals.”)
82 Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 591 (citing Congress’s powers to “declare War ... and make Rules concerning Captures on
Land and Water,” Art. I, §8, cl. 11, to “raise and support Armies,” Id., cl. 12, to “define and punish ... Offences against
the Law of Nations,” Id., cl. 10, and “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces,”
Id., cl. 14.).
83 P.L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001).
84Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 594-595.
85 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3)(permitting petitions by prisoners “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or
treaties of the United States”).
86 See 415 F.3d at 39 (citing Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 789, n. 14(1950)).
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Supreme Court disagreed, finding the Conventions were applicable as incorporated by UCMJ
Article 21, because “compliance with the law of war is the condition upon which the authority set
forth in Article 21 is granted.”87 In response to the alternative holding by the court below that
Hamdan, as a putative member of Al Qaeda, was not entitled to any of the protections accorded
by the Geneva Conventions, the Court concluded that Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions applies even to members of Al Qaeda, according to them a minimum baseline of
protections, including protection from the “passing of sentences and the carrying out of
executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all
the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”88
While recognizing that Common Article 3 “obviously tolerates a great degree of flexibility in
trying individuals captured during armed conflict,” and that “its requirements are general ones,
crafted to accommodate a wide variety of legal systems,” the Court found that the military
commissions under M.C.O. No. 1 did not meet these criteria. In particular, the military
commissions did not qualify as “regularly constituted” because they deviated too far, in the
Court’s view, from the rules that apply to courts-martial, without a satisfactory explanation of the
need for such deviation.89 Justice Alito, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, dissented, arguing
that the Court is bound to defer to the President’s plausible interpretation of the treaty language.
Analysis
While the Hamdan Court declared the military commissions as constituted under the President
Bush’s Military Order to be “illegal,” it left open the possibility that changes to the military
commission rules could cure any defects by bringing them within the law of war and conformity
with the UCMJ, or by asking Congress to authorize or craft rules tailored to the armed conflict it
authorized against those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Court did not resolve the
extent to which the detainees, as aliens held outside of U.S. territory, have constitutional rights
enforceable in federal court.
The decision may affect the treatment of detainees outside of their criminal trials; for example, in
interrogations for intelligence purposes. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions mandates
that all persons taking no active part in hostilities, including those who have laid down their arms
or been incapacitated by capture or injury, are to be treated humanely and protected from
“violence to life and person,” torture, and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular,
humiliating and degrading treatment.” Insofar as these protections are incorporated in the UCMJ
and other laws, it would seem the Court is ready to interpret and adjudicate them, to the extent it
retains jurisdiction to do so. It is not clear how the Court views the scope of the relevant armed
conflict, however, because its decisions on the merits have been limited to cases arising out of
hostilities in Afghanistan.

87 Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 628.
88 GPW art. 3 § 1(d). The identical provision is included in each of the four Geneva Conventions and applies to any
“conflict not of an international character.” The majority declined to accept the President’s interpretation of Common
Article 3 as inapplicable to the conflict with Al Qaeda and interpreted the phrase “in contradistinction to a conflict
between nations,” which the Geneva Conventions designate a “conflict of international character”. Hamdan, 548 U.S.
at 630.
89 Id. at 633-634 (plurality opinion); id. (Kennedy, J., concurring) at 651. Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg,
Breyer, and Souter, further based their conclusion on the basis that M.C.O. No. 1 did not meet all criteria of art. 75 of
Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, adopted in 1977 (Protocol I). While the United States is not party to
Protocol I, the plurality noted that many authorities regard it as customary international law.
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The opinion reaffirms the holding in Rasul v. Bush90 that the AUMF does not provide the
President a “blank check,” and, by finding in favor of a noncitizen held overseas, seems to have
extended to non-citizens the Hamdi comment that
[w]hatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges
with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly
envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.91
The dissenting views also relied in good measure on actions taken by Congress, seemingly
repudiating the view expressed earlier by the Executive that any efforts by Congress to legislate
with respect to persons captured, detained, and possibly tried in connection with the armed
conflict would be an unconstitutional intrusion into powers held exclusively by the President.92
Expressly or implicitly, all eight participating Justices applied the framework set forth by Justice
Jackson in his famous concurrence in the Steel Seizures case,93 which accords greater deference to
the President in cases involving national security where he acts with express congressional
authority than when he acts alone. The differing views among the Justices seem to have been a
function of their interpretation of the AUMF and other acts of Congress as condoning or limiting
executive actions.94 The Military Commissions Act of 2006 likely resolves many issues regarding
the scope of the President’s authority to try detainees by military commission; however, the
constitutionality of the various measures remains to be resolved.
Al-Marri
The case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri differs significantly from cases discussed above in that the
petitioner, a lawful alien resident, was arrested and imprisoned within the United States. Whether
a person in his position may lawfully be detained pursuant to the AUMF has not been fully
resolved. The issue divided the Fourth Circuit, which initially found in favor in the petitioner but
then reversed en banc, only to have the Supreme Court vacate the en banc opinion after the
government charged the petitioner with a federal crime and moved him into the ordinary criminal
justice system. The following section describes the facts of the case and the issues that divided
the courts, which may return to relevance, especially if congressional efforts are successful in
making military commissions the sole forum for trying persons who meet the definition of
persons triable under the Military Commissions Act, as amended.95
Al-Marri, a Qatari student, was arrested in December 2001 in Peoria, IL, and transported to New
York City, where he was held as a material witness for the grand jury investigating the 9/11
attacks. He was later charged with financial fraud and making false statements and transferred
back to Peoria. Before his case went to trial, however, he was declared an “enemy combatant”

90 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
91 542 U.S. 507, 535 (2004).
92 See, e.g., Oversight of the Department of Justice: Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 107th Cong.
(2002) (testimony of Attorney General John Ashcroft) (arguing that a statute that could be read to interfere with the
executive power to detain enemy combatants must be interpreted otherwise to withstand constitutional scrutiny).
93 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).
94 For information about relevant legislation, see CRS Report RL31600, The Department of Defense Rules for Military
Commissions: Analysis of Procedural Rules and Comparison with Proposed Legislation and the Uniform Code of
Military Justice, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
95 See, e.g., H.R. 4111, H.R. 4463, H.R. 4415, and H.R. 4127 (111th Cong.).
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and transferred to military custody in South Carolina. Al-Marri’s counsel filed a petition for
habeas corpus challenging al-Marri’s designation and detention as an “enemy combatant.” The
petition was eventually dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit,96 and a new petition was filed in the Fourth Circuit. In March 2005, Judge Floyd
agreed with the government that the detention was authorized by the AUMF and transferred the
case to a federal magistrate to examine the factual allegations supporting the government’s
detention of the petitioner as an enemy combatant.97 The government provided a declaration
asserting that al-Marri is closely associated with Al Qaeda and had been sent to the United States
prior to September 11, 2001, to serve as a “sleeper agent” for Al Qaeda in order to “facilitate
terrorist activities and explore disrupting this country’s financial system through computer
hacking.”98 The magistrate judge recommended the dismissal of the petition on the basis of
information the government provided, which al-Marri did not attempt to rebut and which the
magistrate judge concluded was sufficient for due process purposes in line with the Hamdi
decision.99 The district judge adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendations in full,
rejecting the petitioner’s argument that his capture away from a foreign battlefield precluded his
designation as an “enemy combatant.”100
Al-Marri appealed, and the government moved to dismiss on the basis that section 7 of the 2006
MCA stripped the court of jurisdiction. The petitioner asserted that Congress did not intend to
deprive him of his right to habeas or that, alternatively, the MCA is unconstitutional. The
majority of the appellate panel avoided the constitutional question by finding that al-Marri does
not meet the statutory definition as an alien who “has been determined by the United States to
have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”101

96 Al-Marri v. Rumsfeld, 360 F.3d 707 (7th Cir. 2004), cert. denied 543 U.S. 809 (2004).
97 Al-Marri v. Hanft, 378 F. Supp.2d 673 (D. S.C. 2005) (order denying summary judgment).
98 Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213, 220 (4th Cir. 2008)(Motz, J., concurring)(citing declaration Jeffrey N. Rapp,
Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism).
99 Al-Marri v. Wright, 443 F. Supp. 2d 774 (D. S.C. 2006) (citing Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)). With
respect to the “due process hearing” required to establish that an enemy combatant is properly held, the Hamdi plurality
stated that:
enemy combatant proceedings may be tailored to alleviate their uncommon potential to burden the
Executive at a time of ongoing military conflict. Hearsay, for example, may need to be accepted as
the most reliable available evidence from the Government in such a proceeding. Likewise, the
Constitution would not be offended by a presumption in favor of the Government’s evidence, so
long as that presumption remained a rebuttable one and fair opportunity for rebuttal were provided.
Thus, once the Government puts forth credible evidence that the habeas petitioner meets the
enemy-combatant criteria, the onus could shift to the petitioner to rebut that evidence with more
persuasive evidence that he falls outside the criteria.
100 Id. at 778-80.
101 The court held that the 2006 MCA requires a two-step process for determining whether persons are properly
detained as enemy combatants, but that the President’s determination of the petitioner’s “enemy combatant” status
fulfilled only the first step. The court next found that al-Marri could not be said to be awaiting such a determination
within the meaning of the MCA, inasmuch as the government was arguing on the merits that the presidential
determination had provided all of the process that was due, and the government had offered the possibility of bringing
al-Marri before a CSRT only as an alternative course of action in the event the petition were dismissed. Further, the
majority looked to the legislative history of the MCA, from which it divined that Congress did not intend to replace
habeas review with the truncated review available under the amended DTA in the case of aliens within the United
States, who it understood to have a constitutional as opposed to merely statutory entitlement to seek habeas review. Al-
Marri v. Wright , 487 F.3d 160, 172 (4th Cir. 2007), vacated sub nom. Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213 (2008)(per
curiam).
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Turning to the merits, the majority found that al-Marri does not fall within the legal category of
“enemy combatant” within the meaning of Hamdi, and that the government could continue to
hold him only if it charges him with a crime, commences deportation proceedings, obtains a
material witness warrant in connection with grand jury proceedings, or detains him for a limited
time pursuant to the USA PATRIOT Act.102 In so holding, the majority rejected the government’s
contention that the AUMF authorizes the President to order the military to seize and detain
persons within the United States under the facts asserted by the government, or that, alternatively,
the President has inherent constitutional authority to order the detention.
The government cited the Hamdi decision and the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Padilla v. Hanft103
to support its contention that al-Marri is an enemy combatant within the meaning of the AUMF
and the law of war. The court, however, interpreted Hamdi as confirming only that “the AUMF is
explicit congressional authorization for the detention of individuals in the narrow category ... [of]
individuals who were ‘part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition
partners in Afghanistan and who engaged in an armed conflict against the United States there.’”104
Likewise, Padilla, although captured in the United States, could be detained pursuant to the
AUMF only because he had been, prior to returning to the United States, “‘armed and present in a
combat zone’ in Afghanistan as part of Taliban forces during the conflict there with the United
States.”105 The court explained that the two cases cited by the government, Hamdi and Padilla,
involved situations similar to the World War II case Ex parte Quirin,106 in which the Supreme
Court agreed that eight German saboteurs could be tried by military commission because they
were enemy belligerents within the meaning of the law of war.107 In contrast, al-Marri’s situation
was to be likened to Ex parte Milligan,108 the Civil War case in which the Supreme Court held
that a citizen of Indiana accused of conspiring to commit hostile acts against the Union was
nevertheless a civilian who was not amenable to military jurisdiction.109 The court concluded that
enemy combatant status rests, in accordance with the law of war, on affiliation with the military
arm of an enemy government in an international armed conflict.
Judge Hudson dissented, arguing that the broad language of the AUMF, which authorized the
President “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or
persons he determines” were involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, “would
certainly seem to embrace surreptitious al Qaeda agents operating within the continental United
States.”110 He would have found no meaningful distinction between the present case and Padilla.

102 Id. at 196.
103 423 F.3d 386 (4th Cir. 2005). The government is no longer holding Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, having
turned him over to civil authorities for trial on charges associated with terrorism.
104 Al-Marri, 487 F.3d at 180 (citing Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 516-17)(emphasis in original).
105 Id. (citing Padilla, 423 F.3d at 390-91).
106 317 U.S. 1 (1942).
107 Al-Marri, 487 F.3d at 179 (citing Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38; Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 519; Padilla, 423 F.3d at 391).
108 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2 (1866).
109 Al-Marri, 487 F.3d at 189.
110 Id. at 196 (Hudson, J., dissenting).
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The government petitioned for and was granted a rehearing en banc.111 On rehearing, the
narrowly divided Fourth Circuit full bench rejected the earlier panel’s decision in favor of the
government’s position that al-Marri fit the legal definition of “enemy combatant,” but also
reversed the district court’s decision that al-Marri was not entitled to present any more evidence
to refute the government’s case against him. Four of the judges on the panel would have retained
the earlier decision, arguing that it was not within the court’s power to expand the definition of
“enemy combatant” beyond the law-of-war principles at the heart of the Supreme Court’s Hamdi
decision.112 However, these four judges joined in Judge Traxler’s opinion to remand for
evidentiary proceedings in order “at least [to] place the burden on the Government to make an
initial showing that normal due process protections are unduly burdensome and that the Rapp
declaration is ‘the most reliable available evidence,’ supporting the Government’s allegations
before it may order al-Marri’s military detention.”113
Judge Traxler, whose opinion is controlling for the case although not joined in full by any other
panel member, agreed with the four dissenting judges that the AUMF “grants the President the
power to detain enemy combatants in the war against al Qaeda, including belligerents who enter
our country for the purpose of committing hostile and war-like acts such as those carried out by
the al Qaeda operatives on 9/11.”114 Accordingly, he would define “enemy combatant” in the
present terrorism-related hostilities to include persons who “associate themselves with al Qaeda”
and travel to the United States “for the avowed purpose of further prosecuting that war on
American soil, ... even though the government cannot establish that the combatant also ‘took up
arms on behalf of that enemy and against our country in a foreign combat zone of that war.’”115
Under this definition, American citizens arrested in the United States could also be treated as

111 Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213 (4th Cir. 2008)(per curiam). The intervening Supreme Court decision in
Boumediene led the court to reject the government’s contention that the 2006 MCA had divested the court of
jurisdiction.
112 Id. at 227-232 (Motz, J. concurring)(citing Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 518). Judge Motz, joined by three other judges,
characterized leading precedents as sharing two characteristics:
(1) they look to law-of-war principles to determine who fits within the “legal category” of enemy combatant; and
(2) following the law of war, they rest enemy combatant status on affiliation with the military arm of an enemy
nation.
Under their interpretation of the law of war, there is no combatant status in non-international armed conflict, where
detention is controlled by domestic law. For a discussion of U.S. practice with respect to the wartime detention of
suspected enemies, whether civilians or combatants, see CRS Report RL31724, Detention of American Citizens as
Enemy Combatants, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
113 Al-Marri, 534 F.3d at 553 (Motz, J. concurring).
114 Id. at 253-254 (Traxler, J., concurring).
115 Id. at 258-259 (Traxler, J., concurring). Judge Traxler further suggested that the types of activities that would
distinguish a combatant from a civilian enemy would include violent activities. See id. at 261 (describing the
allegations that al-Marri “directly allied himself with al Qaeda abroad, volunteered for assignments (including a martyr
mission), received training and funding from al Qaeda abroad, was dispatched by al Qaeda to the United States as an al
Qaeda operative with orders to serve as a sleeper agent, and was tasked with facilitating and ultimately committing
terrorist attacks against the United States within this country”). The dissenting judges suggested similar definitions for
determining who may be treated as an “enemy combatant.” See id. at 285 (Williams, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part)(defining enemy combatant covered by the AUMF as “an individual who meets two criteria: (1) he
attempts or engages in belligerent acts against the United States, either domestically or in a foreign combat zone; (2) on
behalf of an enemy force”); id. at 323-324 (Wilkinson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)(proposing two-part
test in which “an ‘enemy’ is any individual who is (1) a member of (2) an organization or nation against whom
Congress has declared war or authorized the use of military force” and a combatant is “ a person who knowingly plans
or engages in conduct that harms or aims to harm persons or property for the purpose of furthering the military goals of
an enemy nation or organization”).
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enemy combatants under similar allegations,116 at least if they had traveled abroad and returned
for the purpose of engaging in activity related to terrorism on behalf of Al Qaeda.
However, Judge Traxler did not agree that al-Marri had been afforded due process by the district
court to challenge the factual basis for his designation as an enemy combatant. While recognizing
that the Hamdi plurality had suggested that hearsay evidence might be adequate to satisfy due
process requirements for proving enemy combatant status, Judge Traxler did not agree that such
relaxed evidentiary standards are necessarily appropriate when dealing with a person arrested in
the United States:
Because al-Marri was seized and detained in this country,... he is entitled to habeas review by
a civilian judicial court and to the due process protections granted by our Constitution,
interpreted and applied in the context of the facts, interests, and burdens at hand. To
determine what constitutional process al-Marri is due, the court must weigh the competing
interests, and the burden-shifting scheme and relaxed evidentiary standards discussed in
Hamdi serve as important guides in this endeavor. Hamdi does not, however, provide a
cookie-cutter procedure appropriate for every alleged enemy-combatant, regardless of the
circumstances of the alleged combatant’s seizure or the actual burdens the government might
face in defending the habeas petition in the normal way.117
In December 2008, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the Al-Marri ruling,118
potentially setting the stage for the Court to make a definitive pronouncement regarding the
President’s authority to militarily detain terrorist suspects apprehended away from the Afghan
battlefield. However, on January 22, 2009, President Obama instructed the Attorney General,
Secretary of Defense, and other designated officials to review the factual and legal basis for al-
Marri’s continued detention as an enemy combatant, and “identify and thoroughly evaluate
alternative dispositions.”119 This review culminated in criminal charges being brought against al-
Marri in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, alleging that al-Marri provided
material support to Al Qaeda and had conspired with others to provide material support to Al
Qaeda.120 The United States thereafter moved for the Supreme Court to dismiss al-Marri’s appeal
as moot and authorize his transfer from military to civilian custody pending his criminal trial. On
March 6, 2009, the Court granted the government’s application concerning the transfer of al-
Marri to civilian custody. It vacated the Fourth Circuit’s judgment and remanded the case back to
the appellate court with instructions to dismiss the case as moot.121 Accordingly, the appellate
court’s earlier decision regarding the President’s authority to detain terrorist suspects captured
within the United States is no longer binding precedent in the Fourth Circuit. Al-Marri thereafter

116 See id. at 279-280 (Gregory, J., concurring).
117 Id. at 272. Judge Traxler formulated a general rule under which such enemy combatants “would be entitled to the
normal due process protections available to all within this country, including an opportunity to confront and question
witnesses against him[, unless] the government can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the district court that this is
impractical, outweighed by national security interests, or otherwise unduly burdensome because of the nature of the
capture and the potential burdens imposed on the government to produce non-hearsay evidence and accede to discovery
requests, [in which case] alternatives should be considered and employed.” Id. at 273.
118 129 S.Ct. 680 (2008).
119 Memorandum from President Barack Obama to the Attorney General and Other Officials, “Review of the Detention
of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri,” January 22, 2009, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/
ReviewoftheDetentionofAliSalehKahlah/ (hereinafter “al-Marri Memo”).
120 Department of Justice, “Ali Al-Marri Indicted for Providing Material Support to Al-Qaeda,” press release, February
27, 2009, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/February/09-ag-177.html.
121 Al-Marri v. Spagone, 129 S.Ct. 1545 (U.S. 2009).
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pled guilty in federal civilian court to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to Al
Qaeda.122
The dismissal of al-Marri’s case means that the President’s legal authority to militarily detain
terrorist suspects apprehended in the United States has not been definitively settled. Indeed, the
transfer of al-Marri to civilian custody to face trial in federal civilian court means that the United
States no longer holds any terrorist suspect in military detention who was apprehended in the
United States. Whether circumstances will arise in the “war on terror” or some other military
conflict that will compel the Supreme Court to more definitively address the President’s military
detention authority remains to be seen.
Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA)
The DTA, passed after the Court’s 2004 decision in Rasul, requires uniform standards for
interrogation of persons in the custody of the Department of Defense,123 and expressly bans cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees in the custody of any U.S. agency.124 The prohibited
treatment is defined as that which would violate the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to
the U.S. Constitution, as the Senate has interpreted “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment
banned by the U.N. Convention Against Torture.125 The provision does not create a cause of
action for detainees to ask a court for relief based on inconsistent treatment, and it divests the
courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges by those detained at Guantanamo Bay based on their
treatment or living conditions.126 It also provides a legal defense to U.S. officers and agents who
may be sued or prosecuted based on their treatment or interrogation of detainees.127 This language
appears to have been added as a compromise because the Bush Administration reportedly sought
to have the Central Intelligence Agency excepted from the prohibition on cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment on the grounds that the President needs “maximum flexibility in dealing with
the global war on terrorism.”128

122 Department of Justice, “Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda,” press
release, April 30, 2009, http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-nsd-415.html.
123 Section 1002 of P.L. 109-148 requires the DOD to follow the Army Field Manual for intelligence interrogation. See
Department of the Army Field Manual 2-22.3 (FM 34-52), Human Intelligence Collector Operations (2006).
124 Section 1003 of P.L. 109-148. See CRS Report RL33655, Interrogation of Detainees: Requirements of the Detainee
Treatment Act, by Michael John Garcia.
125 Section 1003(d) of P.L. 109-148. For more information, see CRS Report RL32438, U.N. Convention Against
Torture (CAT): Overview and Application to Interrogation Techniques, by Michael John Garcia.
126 Section 1005 of P.L. 109-148 (denying aliens in military custody privilege to file writ of habeas corpus or “any
other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the[ir] detention ... ”).
127 Section 1004 of P.L. 109-148 provides a defense in litigation related to “specific operational practices,” involving
detention and interrogation where the defendant:
did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding
would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an
important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and
understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful.
128 See Eric Schmitt, Exception Sought in Detainee Abuse Ban, N.Y. TIMES, October 25, 2005, at 16.
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The DTA also includes a modified version of the “Graham-Levin Amendment,”129 which requires
the Defense Department to submit to the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees the
procedural rules for determining detainees’ status.130 The amendment neither authorizes nor
requires a formal status determination, but it does require that certain congressional committees
be notified 30 days prior to the implementation of any changes to the rules. As initially adopted
by the Senate, the amendment would have required these procedural rules to preclude evidence
determined by the board or tribunal to have been obtained by undue coercion, however, the
conferees modified the language so that the tribunal or board must assess, “to the extent
practicable ... whether any statement derived from or relating to such detainee was obtained as a
result of coercion” and “the probative value, if any, of any such statement.”
The Graham-Levin Amendment also eliminated the federal courts’ statutory jurisdiction over
habeas claims by aliens detained at Guantanamo Bay, but provided for limited appeals of status
determinations made pursuant to the DOD procedures for Combatant Status Review Tribunals
(CSRTs). In June 2008, the Supreme Court invalidated the provision that eliminated habeas
corpus jurisdiction, but stated that the DTA appellate process “remains intact,”131 although it
appears that the process is not an adequate substitute for habeas review. However, it no longer
constitutes the sole statutory avenue by which a detainee may seek judicial review of his
detention. However, the D.C. Circuit held that the DTA appellate procedure is no longer good
law, leaving habeas petitions as the only means of seeking review of detention.132
Under the appellate process prescribed by the DTA, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had
exclusive jurisdiction to hear appeals of any status determination made by a “Designated Civilian
Official,” but the review was limited to a consideration of whether the determination was made
consistently with applicable DOD procedures, including whether it was supported by the
preponderance of the evidence, but allowing a rebuttable presumption in favor of the government.
Detainees were permitted to appeal status determinations on the basis that, “to the extent the
Constitution and laws of the United States are applicable, whether the use of such standards and
procedures to make the determination is consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United
States.” Jurisdiction was to cease if the detainee were transferred from DOD custody.133
The DTA also provided for an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
of final sentences rendered by a military commission.134 As initially enacted, the DTA required
the court to review capital cases or cases in which the alien was sentenced to death or to a term of
imprisonment for 10 years or more, and made review over convictions with lesser penalties
discretionary.135 The scope of review was limited to considering whether the decision applied the

129 151 CONG. REC. S12667 (daily ed. November 10, 2005)(introduced by Sen. Graham, passed by roll call vote, 49 -
42), as amended by S.Amdt. 2524, 151 CONG. REC. S12771 (daily ed. November 14, 2005).
130 The amendment refers to both the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (“CSRTs”), the initial administrative
procedure to confirm the detainees’ status as enemy combatants, and the Administrative Review Boards, which were
established to provide annual review that the detainees’ continued detention is warranted.
131 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2275 (2008).
132 Bismullah v. Gates, 551 F.3d 1068 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
133 Congress in 2006 amended one version of the DTA to provide that jurisdiction would cease in the event the detainee
was transferred from U.S. custody. Compare P.L. 109-163, title XIV, § 1405(e)(2) and P.L. 109-148, div. A, title X,
§ 1005(e)(2), as amended by P.L. 109-366 § 10, 10 U.S.C. § 801 note.
134 P.L. 109-163, title XIV, § 1405(e)(3) and P.L. 109-148, div. A, title X, § 1005(e)(3), both codified at 10 U.S.C.
§ 801 note.
135 The first version of the DTA, P.L. 109-148, was amended by the 2006 MCA, P.L. 109-366 § 9 to change the
(continued...)
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correct standards consistent with Military Commission Order No. 1 (implementing President
Bush’s Military Order) and whether those standards were consistent with the Constitution and
laws of the United States, to the extent applicable.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
After the Court’s decision in Hamdan, the Bush Administration proposed legislation to
Congress,136 a version of which was enacted on October 17, 2006. The Military Commissions Act
of 2006 (MCA or 2006 MCA) authorized the trial of certain detainees by military commission
and prescribed detailed rules to govern their procedures.137 The 2006 MCA also amended the
DTA provisions regarding appellate review and habeas corpus jurisdiction. In 2009, Congress
enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (2009 MCA) as part of the National Defense
Authorization Act for FY2010 (P.L. 111-84). The 2009 MCA modified many of the rules for
military commissions to make them more closely resemble those used in courts-martial
proceedings,138 but made only minor modifications to existing laws concerning court jurisdiction
to adjudicate claims raised by detainees.
Provisions Affecting Court Jurisdiction
The 2006 MCA expanded the DTA to make its review provisions the exclusive remedy for all
aliens detained as enemy combatants anywhere in the world, rather than only those housed at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.139 It does not, however, require that all detainees undergo a CSRT or a
military tribunal in order to continue to be confined. However, inasmuch as the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared the DTA appellate procedures to be defunct
in light of the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision, it appears that all challenges must now be

(...continued)
reference from military commissions pursuant to President Bush’s military order to refer to the military commissions
established pursuant to the MCA and to make review “as of right” for all verdicts, irrespective of the sentence, but the
version of the DTA passed in P.L. 109-163 was not amended. The amended version of the DTA was amended again by
the 2009 MCA to strike paragraph 3 altogether, P.L. 111-84, title XVIII § 1803(b), 123 stat. 2574, 2612. Appeals of
military commission at the D.C. Circuit are now covered by 10 U.S.C. § 950g, although the first version of the DTA,
(P.L. 109-148) was neither amended nor repealed.
136 Senator Frist introduced the Bush Administration’s proposal as the “Bringing Terrorists to Justice Act of 2006,” S.
3861. The Senate Armed Services Committee reported favorably a bill called the “Military Commissions Act of 2006”
(S. 3901), which was in many respects similar to the Administration’s proposal, but varied with respect to jurisdiction
and some rules of evidence. The House Armed Services Committee approved H.R. 6054, also called the “Military
Commissions Act of 2006,” which closely tracked the Bush Administration’s proposal. After reaching an agreement
with the White House with respect to several provisions in S. 3901, Senator McCain introduced S. 3930, again entitled
the “Military Commissions Act of 2006.” Representative Hunter subsequently introduced a modified version of H.R.
6054 as H.R. 6166, which the House of Representatives passed on September 28, 2006. A manager’s amendment to S.
3930, substantially identical to the bill passed by the House, was passed by the Senate the following day.
137 P.L. 109-366. For a further description of the procedures associated with these military commissions, see CRS
Report RL33688, The Military Commissions Act of 2006: Analysis of Procedural Rules and Comparison with Previous
DOD Rules and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, by Jennifer K. Elsea; and CRS Report R40752, The Military
Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA): Background and Proposed Amendments, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
138 For discussion, see CRS Report R40932, Comparison of Rights in Military Commission Trials and Trials in Federal
Criminal Court, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
139 P.L. 109-148 § 1005, as amended by P.L. 109-366 § 10. Section 1405 of P.L. 109-163 was not amended.
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brought by means of habeas review rather than under the DTA. The records of CSRT proceedings
will likely be relevant to habeas determinations.
Appeals from the final decisions of military commissions continue to go to the United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as they did under the DTA,140 but are routed
through an appellate body, the Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR). Review of
decisions of a military commission may only concern matters of law, not fact.141 Under the 2006
MCA, appeals could be based on inconsistencies with the procedures set forth by the act, or, to
the extent applicable, the Constitution or laws of the United States. The 2009 MCA specifies that
the circuit court may consider and take action regarding the sufficiency of the evidence used to
support the commission’s verdict.
Section 7 of the 2006 MCA revoked U.S. courts’ jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions by
all aliens in U.S. custody as enemy combatants, including lawful enemy combatants, regardless of
the place of custody. It replaced 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e), the habeas provision added by the DTA,
with language providing that
(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a
writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has
been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant
or is awaiting such determination.
(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) [review of CSRT determinations] and (3) [review of
final decisions of military commissions] of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of
2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or
consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the
detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was
detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been
properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.142
This amendment took effect on the date of its enactment, and applied to “all cases, without
exception, pending on or after the date of [enactment] which relate to any aspect of the detention,
transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since
September 11, 2001.” In Boumediene v. Bush, discussed infra, the Supreme Court held that MCA
§ 7 acted as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and authorized
Guantanamo detainees to petition federal district courts for habeas review of CSRT
determinations of their enemy combatant status.
Under the DTA appeals provision, there was no apparent limit to the amount of time a detainee
could spend awaiting a determination as to combatant status. Aliens who continue to be detained
despite having been determined not to be enemy combatants were not permitted to challenge their
continued detention or their treatment, nor were they able to protest their transfer to another
country, for example, on the basis that they fear torture or persecution. However, these matters
may be raised in habeas petition. The extent of relief the courts may be able to grant under
habeas review is currently being litigated.

140 2006 MCA § 5.
141 10 U.S.C. § 950g(d) (as amended).
142 2006 MCA § 7. See also, CRS Report R40752, The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA): Background and
Proposed Amendments, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
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Provisions Regarding the Geneva Conventions
A continuing source of dispute in the detention and treatment of detainees is the application of the
Geneva Convention. As noted previously, the habeas corpus statute has traditionally provided for,
among other things, challenges to allegedly unlawful detentions based on rights found in
treaties.143 Thus, for instance, Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which
prohibits the “passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment
pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are
recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples,” has been used as a basis for challenging the
confinement of detainees.144
Section 5 of the 2006 MCA (28 U.S.C. § 2241 note), however, specifically precludes the
application of the Geneva Conventions to habeas or other civil proceedings.145 Further, the MCA,
as amended, provides that the Geneva Conventions may not be claimed as a basis for a private
right of action by an alien who is subject to military commission proceedings.146 However,
Congress in the 2009 MCA removed language deeming that the military commission structure
established by the act complies with the requirement under Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Convention that trials be by a regularly constituted court.147
In addition, the act provides that the President shall have the authority to interpret the meaning of
the Geneva Conventions.148 The intended effect of this provision is unclear. While the President
generally has a role in the negotiation, implementation, and domestic enforcement of treaty
obligations,149 this power does not generally extend to “interpreting” treaty obligations, a role
more traditionally associated with courts.150 In general, Congress is prohibited from exercising
powers allocated to another branch of government.151 In United States v. Klein,152 the Supreme

143 28 U.S.C. § 2241.
144 GPW art. 3 § 1(d). See Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 630-632 (noting the application of this provision of the Geneva
Conventions to detainees through the UCMJ Article 21).
1452006 MCA § 5(a) (28 U.S.C. § 2241 note) provides that “No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any
protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or
former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of
rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.”
146 10 U.S.C. § 948b(e) provides that “No alien unprivileged enemy belligerent subject to trial by military commission
under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a basis for a private right of action.” Previously, under the
2006 MCA, the Geneva Conventions were not available “as a source of rights” in military commissions. Prior 10
U.S.C. § 948b(g).
147 Prior 10 U.S.C. § 948b(f), provided that a military commission is a “regularly constituted court, affording all the
necessary ‘judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples’ for purposes of common
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.”
148 2006 MCA § 6(a)(3)(A) (18 U.S.C. § 2441 note) provides that “the President has the authority for the United States
to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and
administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva
Conventions.”
149 See, e.g., id. (President is given power to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations
of treaty obligations).
150 See, e.g., 2006 MCA § 6(a)(3)(B)(18 U.S.C. § 2441 note)(“No foreign or international source of law shall supply a
basis for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated in subsection
(d) of such section 2441.”).
151 See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 438 (2000)(striking down congressional statute purporting to overturn
the Court’s Fourth Amendment ruling in Miranda v. Arizona); City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 519
(1997)(Congress’ enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment does not extend to the power to alter the
(continued...)
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Court invalidated a law passed by Congress that was designed to frustrate an earlier finding of the
Supreme Court as to the effect of a presidential pardon.153 Similarly, a law that was specifically
intended to grant the authority of the President to adjudicate or remedy treaty violations could
violate the doctrine of separation of powers, as providing relief from acts in violation of treaties is
a judicial branch function.154 Instead, what appears to be the main thrust of this language is to
establish the authority of the President within the Executive Branch to issue interpretative
regulations by Executive Order.155 However, the context in which this additional authority would
be needed is unclear.
One possible intent of this provision is that the President is being given the authority to
“interpret” the Geneva Convention for diplomatic purposes (e.g., to define treaty obligations and
encourage other countries to conform to such definitions). This interpretation seems unlikely, as
the President’s power in this regard is already firmly established.156 Another possible meaning is
that the President is being given the authority to apply the Geneva Conventions to particular fact
situations, such as specifying what type of interrogation techniques may be lawfully applied to a
particular individual suspected of being an enemy combatant. This interpretation is possible, but
it is not clear how the power to “interpret” would be significant in that situation, as the 2006
MCA precludes application of the Geneva Convention in those contexts in which such
interrogations would be challenged—military commissions, habeas corpus, or any other civil
proceeding.157
The more likely intent of this language would be to give the President the authority to promulgate
regulations prescribing standards of behavior of employees and agents of federal agencies. For
instance, this language might be seen as authorizing the President to issue regulations to
implement how agency personnel should comply with the Geneva Conventions, policies which

(...continued)
Constitution); Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, 514 U.S. 211, 225 (Congress may not disturb final court rulings).
152 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128 (1871).
153 The Court struck down the law, essentially holding that the Congress had an illegitimate purpose in passage of the
law. “[T]he language of the proviso shows plainly that it does not intend to withhold appellate jurisdiction except as a
means to an end. Its great and controlling purpose is to deny to pardons granted by the President the effect which this
court had adjudged them to have.... It seems to us that this is not an exercise of the acknowledged power of Congress to
make exceptions and prescribe regulations to the appellate power.” 80 U.S. at 146. The Court also found that the statute
impaired the effect of presidential pardon, and thus “infringe[ed] the constitutional power of the Executive.” Id. at 147.
154 See generally Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327, 350-51 (2000)(Souter, J., concurring).
155 2006 MCA § 6(a)(3)(B), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2441 note..
156 “If the country with which the treaty is made is dissatisfied with the action of the legislative department, it may
present its complaint to the executive head of the government, and take such other measures as it may deem essential
for the protection of its interests. The courts can afford no redress. Whether the complaining nation has just cause of
complaint, or our country was justified in its legislation, are not matters for judicial cognizance.” Whitney v. Robertson
124 U.S. 190, 194 (1888).
157 2006 MCA § 5(a), codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241 note. See also Al-Bihani v. Obama, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411,
at *6 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2010) (2006 MCA precluded petitioner from raising claim that government’s failure to accord
him prisoner of war status violated Geneva Convention requirements). Because habeas petitions and other claims by
persons properly deemed to be enemy combatants were precluded by the DTA and the MCA, it appears that section 5
of the 2006 MCA was intended to prohibit other detainees, including U.S. citizens and prisoners of war, from asserting
rights under the Geneva Conventions in a petition for habeas corpus or other civil proceeding, but only against the
United States. Section 1405(e) of P.L. 109-63; 2006 MCA, §7(a). See also Noriega v. Pastrana, 564 F.3d 1290 (11th
Cir. 2009) (MCA precluded petitioner, a designated prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions, from invoking
Conventions in challenge to his proposed extradition to France), cert. denied 2010 WL 249001 (U.S. Jan 25, 2010)
(No. 09-35).
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might otherwise be addressed at the agency level. Thus, for instance, if the CIA had established
internal procedures regarding how to perform interrogation consistent with the Geneva
Convention, then this language would explicitly authorize the President to amend such
procedures by Executive Order.158 Whether the President already had such power absent this
language is beyond the scope of this report.
Post-2006 MCA Issues and Developments
Shortly after the enactment of the 2006 MCA, the government filed motions to dismiss all of the
habeas petitions in the D.C. Circuit involving detainees at Guantanamo Bay159 and the petition of
an alien then detained as an enemy combatant in a naval brig in South Carolina.160
Possible Application to U.S. Citizens
As originally enacted, the 2006 MCA provided that military commissions could exercise personal
jurisdiction over alien “unlawful enemy combatants.” Pursuant to modifications made by the
2009 MCA, military commissions may now exercise jurisdiction over alien “unprivileged enemy
belligerents.”161 Despite the difference in nomenclature, the two terms are used to refer to similar
categories of persons.
Some observers raised concern that the 2006 MCA permits the President to detain American
citizens as enemy belligerents without trial.162 The prohibition in the 2006 MCA with respect to
habeas corpus petitions applied only to those filed by or on behalf of aliens detained by the
United States as enemy combatants. However, both MCAs can be read by implication to permit
the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy belligerents, although it does not permit their trial by
military commission, which could affect their entitlement to relief using habeas corpus
procedures.163
A plurality of the Supreme Court held in 2004 in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,164 that the President has the
authority to detain U.S. citizens as enemy combatants pursuant to the AUMF,165 but that the

158 Executive Order 13340, Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of
Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, 72 Fed. Reg. 40707 (July 20, 2007), revoked
by Executive Order 13341, Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, 74 Fed. Reg. 4893 (January 22, 2009) .
159 See Karen DeYoung, Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases, WASH. POST, October 20, 2006, at A18
(reporting notice submitted by Justice Department to courts of intention to move for dismissal of pending enemy
combatant cases).
160 Al-Marri v. Wright, 487 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. 2007), vacated sub nom. Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213 (4th Cir.
2008) (per curiam).
161 10 U.S.C. § 948c.
162 See, e.g., Scott Shane and Adam Liptak, Detainee Bill Shifts Power to President, N.Y. TIMES, September 30, 2006,
at A1.
163 The MCAs’ provisions concerning persons subject to trial before military commissions were recognized in a recent
D.C. Circuit opinion as providing guidance as to the category of persons subject to military detention in the conflict
with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In Al-Bihani v. Obama, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2010), the
majority found that “the government’s detention authority logically covers a category of persons no narrower than is
covered by its military commission authority [under the MCA]…[At a minimum,] any person subject to a military
commission trial is also subject to detention…. Id. at *3-4.
164 542 U.S. 507 (2004).
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determination of combatant status is subject to constitutional due process considerations. The
Hamdi plurality was limited to an understanding that the phrase “enemy combatant” means an
“individual who ... was ‘part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition
partners’ in Afghanistan and who ‘engaged in an armed conflict against the United States’
there,”166 but left it to lower courts to flesh out a more precise definition. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the definition continued to apply to a U.S. citizen who
returned to the United States from Afghanistan and was arrested at the airport.167 More recently,
the Fourth Circuit appeared to have expanded the definition of “enemy combatant” to individuals
arrested in the United States on suspicion of planning to participate in terrorist acts without
necessarily having engaged in hostilities in Afghanistan, but this ruling was part of a judgment
that was thereafter vacated by the Supreme Court. (See discussion of Al-Marri, supra.)
In theory, the executive branch could detain a citizen as an enemy belligerent and argue that the
definition of “unprivileged enemy belligerent” provided in the 2009 MCA, which does not
explicitly limit its definitional scope to aliens, bolsters the detention authority already possessed
by virtue of the AUMF. Constitutional due process would apply, and the citizen could petition for
habeas corpus to challenge his detention. However, under the 2006 MCA the citizen-combatant
would not be able to assert rights based on the Geneva Convention in support of his contention
that he is not an enemy belligerent. In that sense, U.S. citizens could be affected by the 2006 and
2009 MCAs even though they do not directly apply to U.S. citizens.
On the other hand, since the 2009 MCA’s definition for unprivileged enemy belligerent applies on
its face only for the purposes of chapter 47a of Title 10, U.S. Code (providing for the trial by
military commission of alien unprivileged enemy belligerents), it may be argued that outside of
that context, the terms “enemy belligerent” and “enemy combatant” should be understood in the
ordinary sense, that is, to include only persons who participate directly in hostilities against the
United States. This interpretation seems unlikely, given that it would also mean that this narrower
definition of “enemy belligerent” was also meant to apply in the context of the 2006 MCA’s
habeas corpus provisions, such that some aliens who fall under the jurisdiction of a military
commission under the 2006 MCA would nevertheless have been able to argue that their right to
petition for habeas corpus or pursue any other cause of action in U.S. court is unaffected, a
reading that does not seem consistent with Congress’s probable intent. Further, it does not appear
that Congress meant to apply a different definition of “enemy belligerent” to persons depending
on their citizenship. Congress could specify that U.S. citizens captured in the context of the armed
conflict against terrorist organizations be subject to trial in U.S. court for treason or a violation of
any other statute, or prescribe procedures for determining whether U.S. citizens are subject to
detention as enemy belligerents, if constitutional, but it has not done so.
DTA Challenges to Detention
At the same time as it was considering the Boumediene case, the D.C. Circuit was reviewing
several challenges brought pursuant to the DTA in which detainees contested CSRT
determinations that they are properly detained as “enemy combatants.” The first of these cases to

(...continued)
165 P.L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001).
166 542 U.S. at 516.
167 Padilla v. Hanft, 423 F.3d 386 (4th Cir. 2005).
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advance involved Haji Bismullah, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2003, and Husaifa Parhat
and six other detainees, all ethnic Chinese Uighers captured in Pakistan in December 2001. In
January 2009, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the judicial review system established under by the DTA
had been effectively nullified by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boumediene, meaning that
detainees could only challenge the legality of their confinement via habeas corpus review.
Bismullah v. Gates
At issue was a series of motions filed by both parties seeking to establish procedures governing
access to classified information, attorneys’ access to clients, and other matters. The petitioners
sought to have the court adopt rules similar to what the district court had ordered when the cases
were before it on petitions of habeas corpus. The government sought to establish rules restricting
scope of discovery and attorney-client communication to what it viewed as the proper scope of
the court’s review, that is, the CSRT proceedings.
The D.C. Circuit in July 2007 issued an order rejecting the government’s motion to limit the
scope of the court’s review to the official record of the CSRT hearings (Bismullah I).168 Rather,
the court decided, in order to determine whether a preponderance of evidence supported the
CSRT determinations, it must have access to all the information a CSRT “is authorized to obtain
and consider, pursuant to the procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense.” The court denied
the petitioners’ motion for discovery, at least for the time being, stating there was no need for
additional evidence to challenge a CSRT’s ruling that specific evidence or a witness was not
reasonably available. And, because the DTA does not authorize the court to hold a status
determination invalid as “arbitrary and capricious,” there was no need for it to evaluate the
conduct of other detainees’ CSRTs. The court also denied as unnecessary the petitioners’ motion
to appoint a special master.
The court also promised to enter a protective order to implement guidelines for handling
classified and sensitive information and for government monitoring of attorney client written
communications (“legal mail”). Again stressing its mandate under the DTA to determine whether
a preponderance of the evidence supports a CSRT’s status determination, the court found that
counsel for the detainees, to aid in their capacity to assist the court, should be presumed to have a
“need to know” all government information concerning their clients except for highly sensitive
information, in which case the government could present the evidence to the court ex parte. The
court rejected the government’s proposal that would have allowed the government, rather than the
court, to determine what unclassified information would be required to be kept under seal. With
respect to legal mail, the court agreed to the government’s proposal to have mail from attorneys to
detainees reviewed by a “privilege team,” composed of Department of Defense personnel not
involved in the litigation, to redact information not pertinent to matters within the court’s limited
scope of review.
The government asked the panel to reconsider the ruling based on its belief that the order would
require the government to undertake an overly burdensome search of all relevant federal agencies
in order to create a new record for each detainee that would be entirely different from the record
reviewed by the CSRT for that case. The court denied the request for rehearing, explaining its
view that its previous order would not require a search for information that is not “reasonably

168 Bismullah v. Gates, 501 F.3d 178 (Bismullah I), reh’g denied 503 F.3d 137(D.C. Cir. 2007) (Bismullah II).
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available” (Bismullah II).169 The court also suggested that the government might instead convene
new CSRTs to reconfirm the detainees’ status, this time ensuring that the relevant documents are
retained for the purpose of review under the DTA. The government also objected to the
requirement that it turn over classified information to the petitioners’ counsel on the basis of the
risk to intelligence sources and methods as well as the burden of conducting the necessary
reviews to determine which information must be turned over. The court rejected the argument,
pointing out that DOD regulations declare classified information to be not reasonably available
where the originating agency declines to authorize its use in the CSRT process. In light of this
fact, the court suggested, the burden of reviewing the information should not be as great as the
government had argued.
The government then asked for an en banc hearing, but the D.C. Circuit, evenly divided,
declined.170 The government then sought expedited review at the Supreme Court, urging the Court
to decide the cases concurrently with the Boumediene case, but the Court took no action on the
request.171 Instead, it granted certiorari and vacated the decision, remanding for reconsideration in
light of its decision in Boumediene.172 On August 22, 2008, the D.C. Circuit reinstated without
explanation its decisions in Bismullah I and Bismullah II, presumably because it did not find the
Boumediene ruling to conflict with its decisions in these cases.173
The government subsequently petitioned for a rehearing of the case, arguing that the Supreme
Court’s ruling in Boumediene effectively nullified the system of circuit court review established
by the DTA, as Congress had not intended for detainees to have two judicial forums in which to
challenge their detention.174 The D.C. Circuit granted the government’s motion for rehearing, and
on January 9, 2009, a three-judge panel held that, in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in
Boumediene restoring detainees’ ability to seek habeas review of the legality of their detention,
the appellate court no longer had jurisdiction over petitions for review filed pursuant to the DTA.
Writing for the panel, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg described both the text of the DTA and the
subsequent jurisdiction-stripping measures of the 2006 MCA, stating they left no doubt that

169 Bismullah II, 503 F. 3d 137 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
170 Bismullah v. Gates, 514 F.3d 1291 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
171 Gates v. Bismullah (U.S., filed February 14, 2008) (07-1054).
172 Gates v. Bismullah, 128 S.Ct. 2960 (2008). The D.C. Circuit’s determination of how to carry out its mandate under
the DTA was a matter of interest to the Supreme Court as it was considering Boumediene, and may have had some
bearing on the ultimate determination that the DTA procedures are not an adequate substitute for the writ of habeas
corpus. Accordingly, it may be worthwhile to review some of the shortcomings described by the dissent, the only
opinion of the panel that addressed the adequacy of the DTA procedures as a substitute for habeas corpus. Judge Janice
Rogers Brown, concurring separately in Bismullah I, set forth a number of issues she felt call into question the fairness
of the CSRT proceedings. For example, she noted that the detainee bears the burden of proving that he is not an
“enemy combatant”—a term she described as elastic in nature, even though the detainee may not be aware of the
information he is expected to rebut, all without the assistance of counsel. See Bismullah I, 501 F.3d at 193 (Rogers, J.
Concurring). Further, the record presented to the CSRT is limited by the Executive, and the detainee’s only recourse for
seeking further evidence is through the DTA review process. If the detainee is successful in obtaining new evidence,
his remedy appears to be a new CSRT. Id. Finally, she noted evidence that the CSRTs do not necessarily follow their
own regulations regarding the collection and presentation of evidence. Id. (citing differences between written
procedures and those described by Rear Admiral James M. McGarrah in the Boumediene case).
173 Bismullah v. Gates, Case No. 06-1197, Order (D.C. Cir. August 22, 2008) (per curium), available at
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bismullah-order-8-22-08.pdf.
174 Bismullah v. Gates, 551 F.3d 1068 (D.C. Cir. 2009). In a previous case, the government had argued for abeyance of
a detainee’s petition for review of his detention under DTA procedures pending conclusion of habeas proceedings. The
D.C. Circuit granted the government’s motion for abeyance, and raised the possibility in dicta that the Boumediene had
foreclosed direct Circuit Court review under the DTA. Basardh v. Gates, 545 F.3d 1068 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
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Congress understood review under DTA to be a substitute for and not a supplement to habeas
corpus and hence the exclusive means by which a detainee could contest the legality of his
detention in a court.”175 In the aftermath of Boumediene, Judge Ginsburg wrote, the DTA “can no
longer function in a manner consistent with the intent of Congress.”176 Accordingly, the court held
that the DTA may no longer serve as an avenue of judicial review of detainees’ claims, as
Congress had intended this review process to be available to detainees only in the absence of the
availability of habeas review. In January 2009, a review panel considering new information
determined that Bismullah was not an enemy combatant, and he was repatriated to Afghanistan.177
Parhat v. Gates
In October 2007, while the government’s petition to the Supreme Court for certiorari in the
Bismullah case was pending, the government produced to the counsel of Husaifa Parhat, one of
the parties to the Bismullah case, a record (including both classified and unclassified material) of
what was actually presented to Parhat’s CSRT. Parhat subsequently filed a separate motion to the
D.C. Circuit requesting review of the CSRT’s determination that he was an enemy combatant. In
June 2008, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit ruled in the case of Parhat v. Gates that
petitioner had been improperly deemed an “enemy combatant” by a CSRT, the first ruling of its
kind by a federal court. Because the court’s opinion contained classified information, only a
redacted version has been released.178
Parhat, an ethnic Chinese Uighur captured in Pakistan in December 2001, was found to be an
“enemy combatant” by the CSRT on account of his affiliation with a Uighur independence group
known as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which was purportedly “associated”
with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and engaged in hostilities against the United States and its
coalition partners. The basis for Parhat’s alleged “affiliation” with the ETIM was that an ETIM
leader ran a camp in Afghanistan where Parhat had lived and received military training. For his
part, Parhat denied membership in the ETIM or engagement in hostilities against the United
States, and claimed he traveled to Afghanistan solely to join the resistance against China, which
was not alleged to have been a coalition partner of the United States.
The Circuit Court agreed with Parhat that the record before the CSRT did not support the finding
that he was an “enemy combatant,” as that term had been defined by the DOD, and accordingly
the CSRT’s determination was not supported by a “preponderance of the evidence” and
“consistent with the standards and procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense for
Combatant Status Review Tribunals,” as required by the DTA.179 The DOD defined an “enemy
combatant” as
an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaida forces, or associated forces
that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes

175 Bismullah, 551 F.3d at 1075.
176 Id.
177 William Glaberson, Rulings of Improper Detentions as the Bush Era Closes, NY TIMES, Jan. 18, 2009.
178 Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d 834 (D.C. Cir. 2008).
179 Although Parhat argued that the DOD’s regulatory definition of “enemy combatant” exceeded the scope authorized
by the 2001 AUMF, the Circuit Court declined to reach this issue, finding that the government provided insufficient
evidence to demonstrate that Parhat met the DOD’s own regulatory definition.
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any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of
enemy armed forces.180
Both parties agreed that for a detainee who is not a member of the Taliban or Al Qaeda to be
deemed an enemy combatant under this definition, the government must demonstrate by a
preponderance of the evidence that (1) the detainee was part of or supporting “forces”; (2) those
forces are associated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban; and (3) the forces are engaged in hostilities
against the United States or its coalition partners.181
The circuit court found that the evidence presented by the government to support the second and
third elements was insufficient to support the CSRT’s determination that Parhat was an enemy
combatant. Most significantly, the court found that the principal evidence presented by the
government regarding these elements—four government intelligence documents describing ETIM
activities and the group’s relationship with Al Qaeda and the Taliban—did not “provide any of the
underlying reporting upon which the documents’ bottom-line assertions are founded, nor any
assessment of the reliability of that reporting.”182 As a result, the circuit court found that neither
the CSRT nor the reviewing court itself were capable of assessing the reliability of the assertions
made by the documents. Accordingly “those bare assertions cannot sustain the determination that
Parhat is an enemy combatant,”183 and the CSRT’s designation was therefore improper. The
circuit court stressed that it was not suggesting that hearsay evidence could never reliably be used
to determine whether a person was an enemy combatant, or that the government must always
submit the basis for its factual assertions to enable an assessment of its claims. However,
evidence “must be presented in a form, or with sufficient additional information, that permits the
[CSRT] and court to assess its reliability.”184
Having found that the evidence considered by the CSRT was insufficient to support the
designation of Parhat as an enemy combatant, the circuit court next turned to the question of
remedy. Although Parhat urged the court to order his release or transfer to a country other than
China, the court declined to grant such relief, postulating that the government might wish to hold
another CSRT in which it could present additional evidence to support Parhat’s designation as an
enemy combatant. While acknowledging that the DTA did not expressly grant the court release
authority over detainees, the court stated that there was nonetheless “a strong argument ... [that
release authority] is implicit in our authority to determine whether the government has sustained
its burden of proving that a detainee is an enemy combatant,”185 and indicated that it would not
“countenance ‘endless do-overs’” in the CSRT process.
The circuit court also noted that following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boumediene, Parhat
could pursue immediate habeas relief in federal district court, where he would “be able to make
use of the determinations we have made today regarding the decision of his CSRT, and ... raise

180 Parhat, 532 F.3d at 838, quoting Dept. of Def. Order Establishing Combatant Status Review Tribunal (July 7,
2004), at 1.
181 Id.
182 Id. at 846-847.
183 Id. at 847.
184 Id. at 849.
185 Parhat, 532 F.3d at 850 .
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issues that we did not reach” before a court which unquestionably would have the power to order
his release.186
The continuing viability of the circuit court’s ruling in Parhat is unclear given the Court’s
subsequent ruling in Bismullah that the DTA review process has been nullified. However, the
circuit court panel in Bismullah implied that, despite its determination that the DTA review
process was no longer available to detainees, the its ruling in Parhat remains in force.187
The government declined to reconvene CSRTs for Parhat and 16 other Uighurs detained at
Guantanamo, and no longer considers them enemy combatants. However, the DOD continues to
maintain custody over them pending their transfer to a third country. The government was
initially unable to effectuate their transfer to a country where they would not face a substantial
risk of torture or persecution. Although some of the Uighurs have successfully been transferred to
other countries,188 several remain at Guantanamo. The Uighurs filed habeas petitions with the
U.S. District Court for D.C., and requested that they be released into the United States pending
the court’s final judgment on their habeas petitions. In October 2008, District Court Judge
Ricardo M. Urbina found that the government had no authority to detain the petitioners and
ordered their release into the United States, 189 at least until they may be transferred to a third
country.
The government quickly filed an emergency motion with the D.C. Circuit to temporarily stay
Judge Urbina’s ruling pending the circuit court’s disposition of a government motion for a stay
pending appeal. The emergency motion was granted by a three-judge panel of the circuit court.190
Later, the panel granted the government’s motion for expedited review of the district court’s order
and, in a 2-1 decision, a stay of the Uighurs’ transfer pending review of the district court’s
ruling.191 In February 2009, the circuit panel reversed the district court, finding that the
constitutional writ of habeas did not entitle petitioners to the “extraordinary remedy” of being
released into the United States in light of long-standing jurisprudence recognizing the “exclusive
power of the political branches to decide which aliens may, and which aliens may not, enter the
United States.”192 The Supreme Court subsequently agreed to hear an appeal of the circuit court’s
ruling, and arguments will likely be heard last this year in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama.193 Since
that time, four of the Uighurs have been resettled in Bermuda, and six others have been
transferred to Palau.194 Switzerland has agreed to admit the tow remaining Uighur detainees,195
which may lead to a termination of the Kiyemba case on mootness grounds.

186 Id. at 851.
187 Bismullah, 551 F.3d at 1075, n, 2.
188 See William Glaberson, 6 Detainees Are Freed as Questions Linger, NY TIMES, June 11, 2009 (discussing transfer
of four Uighur detainees to Bermuda).
189 In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, 581 F.Supp.2d 33 (D.D.C. 2008).
190 Kiyemba v. Bush, No. 08-5424, Order (D.C. Cir., October 8, 2008) (per curiam).
191 Kiyemba v. Bush, No. 08-5424, 2008 WL 4898963, Order (D.C. Cir., October 20, 2008) (per curiam).
192 Kiyemba v. Obama, 555 F.3d 1022, 1025, 1028 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
193 Kiyemba v. Obama, 130 S.Ct. 458 (October 20, 2009).
194 See Andrei Scheinkman et al., “The Guantanamo Docket,” NY TIMES, at http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo
[hereinafter “Guantanamo Docket”] (providing information regarding current and former Guantanamo population,
including countries to which former detainees have been transferred).
195 Swiss rebuke Chinese, grant asylum for Uighurs now at Guantánamo Bay, MIAMI HERALD, FEB. 3, 2010.
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Boumediene v. Bush196
The petitioners in Boumediene were aliens detained at Guantanamo who sought habeas review of
their continued detention. Rather than pursuing an appeal of their designation as enemy
combatants by CSRTs using the DTA appeals process, the petitioners sought to have the district
court decisions denying habeas review reversed on the basis that the 2006 MCA’s “court-
stripping”197 provision was unconstitutional.198 On appeal, the D.C. Circuit affirmed, holding that
the 2006 MCA stripped it and all other federal courts of jurisdiction to consider petitioners’
habeas applications. Relying upon its earlier opinion in Al Odah v. United States199 and the 1950
Supreme Court case Johnson v. Eisentrager,200 in which the Supreme Court found that the
constitutional writ of habeas was not available to enemy aliens imprisoned for war crimes in
post-WWII Germany, the D.C. Circuit held that the 2006 MCA’s elimination of habeas
jurisdiction did not operate as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ, because aliens held by
the United States in foreign territory do not have a constitutional right to habeas.201 Consequently,
the court did not examine whether the DTA provides an adequate substitution for habeas review.
The Supreme Court initially denied the petitioners’ request for review,202 with three Justices
dissenting to the denial and two Justices explaining the basis for their support.203 In June 2007,
however, the Court reversed its denial and granted certiorari to consider the consolidated cases of
Boumediene and Al Odah. In a 5-4 opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, the Court reversed the
D.C. Circuit and held that petitioners had a constitutional right to habeas that was withdrawn by
the 2006 MCA in violation of the Constitution’s Suspension Clause.204

196 For further discussion, see CRS Report RL34536, Boumediene v. Bush: Guantanamo Detainees’ Right to Habeas
Corpus, by Michael John Garcia.
197 The practice of divesting courts of jurisdiction over particular issues is sometimes referred to as “court-stripping.”
198 In re Guantanamo Cases, 355 F. Supp. 2d 443 (D.D.C. 2005) and Khalid v. Bush, 355 F. Supp. 2d 311 (D.D.C.
2005), consolidated, vacated and dismissed sub nom. Boumediene v. Bush, 476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir. 2007).
199 Al Odah v. United States, 321 F.3d 1134 (D.C. Cir 2003), rev’d sub nom Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
200 339 U.S. 763 (1950).
201 476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir. 2007). Judge Randolph, joined by Judge Sentelle, found that the measure does not
constitute a suspension of the Writ within the meaning of the Constitution because the majority was “aware of no case
prior to 1789 going the detainees’ way,” and were thus convinced that “the writ in 1789 would not have been available
to aliens held at an overseas military base leased from a foreign government.” Judge Rogers, in dissent, would have
given greater deference to the Supreme Court’s Rasul opinion, in which it drew a distinction between the situation
faced by the Guantanamo detainees and the post-WWII convicts, 542 U.S. 466, 475 (2004), and in which it found the
naval base to be within the historical scope of the Writ. Boumediene, 476 F.3d at 1002 (Rogers, J., dissenting))(citing
Sierra Club v. EPA, 322 F.3d 718, 724 (D.C. Cir. 2003)).
202 Boumediene v. Bush, 127 S.Ct. 1478 (2007).
203 Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Kennedy, wrote a statement explaining their view that, “despite the obvious
importance of the issues raised,” the petitioners should first exhaust remedies available under the DTA unless the
petitoners can show that the government is causing delay or some other ongoing injury that would make those remedies
inadequate. Id. at 1478. Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, would have granted certiorari to
provide immediate attention to the issues. The dissenters viewed it as unlikely that further treatment by the lower courts
might elucidate the issues, given that the 2006 MCA limits jurisdiction to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit,
which had already indicated that Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights. Justices Breyer and Souter would
have granted expedited consideration.
204 U.S. CONST. Art. 1, § 9, cl. 2.
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Constitutional Right to Habeas
The petitioners in Boumediene argued that they possess a constitutional right to habeas, and that
the 2006 MCA deprived them of this right in contravention of the Suspension Clause, which
prohibits the suspension of the writ of habeas except “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the
public Safety may require it.” The 2006 MCA did not expressly purport to be a formal suspension
of the writ of habeas, and the government did not make such a claim to the Court. Instead, the
government argued that aliens designated as enemy combatants and detained outside the de jure
territory of the United States have no constitutional rights, including the constitutional privilege
to habeas, and that therefore stripping the courts of jurisdiction to hear petitioners’ habeas claims
did not violate the Suspension Clause.
The Court began its analysis by surveying the history and origins of the writ of habeas corpus,
emphasizing the importance placed on the writ for the Framers, while also characterizing its prior
jurisprudence as having been “careful not to foreclose the possibility that the protections of the
Suspension Clause have expanded along with post-1789 developments that define the present
scope of the writ.”205 The Court characterized the Suspension Clause as not only a “vital
instrument” for protecting individual liberty, but also a means to ensure that the judiciary branch
would have, except in cases of formal suspension, “a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the
delicate balance of governance” between the branches and prevent “cyclical abuses” of the writ
by the executive and legislative branches.206 The Court stated that the separation-of-powers
doctrine and the history shaping the design of the Suspension Clause informed its interpretation
of the reach and purpose of the Clause and the constitutional writ of habeas.
The Court found the historical record to be inconclusive for resolving whether the Framers would
have understood the constitutional writ of habeas as extending to suspected enemy aliens held in
foreign territory over which the United States exercised plenary, but not de jure control.
Nonetheless, the Court interpreted the Suspension Clause as having full effect at Guantanamo.
While the Court did not question the government’s position that Cuba maintains legal sovereignty
over Guantanamo under the terms of the 1903 lease giving the U.S. plenary control over the
territory, it disagreed with the government’s position that “at least when applied to non-citizens,
the Constitution necessarily stops where de jure sovereignty ends.”207
Instead, the Court characterized its prior jurisprudence as recognizing that the Constitution’s
extraterritorial application turns on “objective factors and practical concerns.”208 Here, the Court
emphasized the functional approach taken in the Insular Cases, where it had assessed the
availability of constitutional rights in incorporated and unincorporated territories under the
control of United States.209 Although the government argued that the Court’s subsequent decision
in Eisentrager stood for the proposition that the constitutional writ of habeas does not extend to
enemy aliens captured and detained abroad, the Court found this reading to be overly constrained.
According to the Court, interpreting the Eisentrager ruling in this formalistic manner would be

205 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. 2229 at 2248 (citing INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S. 289, 300-301(2001)).
206 Id. at 2247.
207 Id. at 2253.
208 Id. at 2258.
209 See De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1 (1901); Dooley v. United States, 182 U. S. 222 (1901); Armstrong v. United
States, 182 U. S. 243 (1901); Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244; Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U. S. 197 (1903); Dorr v.
United States, 195 U. S. 138 (1904).
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inconsistent with the functional approach taken by the Court in other cases concerning the
Constitution’s extraterritorial application,210 and would disregard the practical considerations that
informed the Eisentrager Court’s decision that the petitioners were precluded from seeking
habeas.
Based on the language found in the Eisentrager decision and other cases concerning the
extraterritorial application of the Constitution, the Court deemed at least three factors to be
relevant in assessing the extraterritorial scope of the Suspension Clause: (1) the citizenship and
status of the detainee and the adequacy of the status determination process; (2) the nature of the
site where the person is seized and detained; and (3) practical obstacles inherent in resolving the
prisoner’s entitlement to the writ.
Applying this framework, the Court characterized petitioners’ circumstances in the instant case as
being significantly different from those of the detainees at issue in Eisentrager. Among other
things, the Court noted that unlike the detainees in Eisentrager, the petitioners denied that they
were enemy combatants, and the government’s control of the post-WWII, occupied German
territory in which the Eisentrager detainees were held was not nearly as significant nor secure as
its control over the territory where the petitioners are located. The Court also found that the
procedural protections afforded to Guantanamo detainees in CSRT hearings are “far more limited
[than those afforded to the Eisentrager detainees tried by military commission], and, we
conclude, fall well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the
need for habeas corpus review.”211
While acknowledging that it had never before held that noncitizens detained in another country’s
territory have any rights under the U.S. Constitution, the Court concluded that the case before it
“lack[ed] any precise historical parallel.”212 In particular, the Court noted that the Guantanamo
detainees have been held for the duration of a conflict that is already one of the longest in U.S.
history, in territory that, while not technically part of the United States, is subject to complete
U.S. control. Based on these factors, the Court concluded that the Suspension Clause has full
effect at Guantanamo.
Adequacy of Habeas Corpus Substitute
Having decided that petitioners possessed a constitutional privilege to habeas corpus, the Court
next assessed whether the court-stripping measure of MCA § 7 was impermissible under the
Suspension Clause. Because the MCA did not purport to be a formal suspension of the writ, the
question before the Court was whether Congress had provided an adequate substitute for habeas
corpus. The government argued that the 2006 MCA complied with the Suspension Clause
because it applied the DTA’s review process to petitioners, which the government claimed was a
constitutionally adequate habeas substitute.

210 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. 2229 at 2255-56, 2258 (discussing plurality opinion in Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1 (1957)).
In his concurring opinion in Reid, Justice Harlan argued that whether a constitutional provision has extraterritorial
effect depends upon the “particular circumstances, the practical necessities, and the possible alternatives which
Congress had before it” and, in particular, whether judicial enforcement of the provision would be “impracticable and
anomalous.” Reid, 354 U.S. at 74-75 (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
211 Id. at 2260.
212 Id. at 2262.
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Though the Court declined to “offer a comprehensive summary of the requisites for an adequate
substitute for habeas corpus,” it nonetheless deemed the habeas privilege, at minimum, as
entitling a prisoner “to a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that he is being held pursuant to
‘the erroneous application or interpretation’ of relevant law,” and empowering a court “to order
the conditional release of an individual unlawfully detained,” though release need not be the
exclusive remedy or appropriate in every instance where the writ is granted.213 Additionally, the
necessary scope of habeas review may be broader, depending upon “the rigor of any earlier
proceedings.”214
The Court noted that petitioners identified a myriad of alleged deficiencies in the CSRT process
which limited a detainee’s ability to present evidence rebutting the government’s claim that he is
an enemy combatant. Among other things, cited deficiencies include constraints upon the
detainee’s ability to find and present evidence at the CSRT stage to challenge the government’s
case; the failure to provide a detainee with assistance of counsel; limiting the detainee’s access to
government records other than those that are unclassified, potentially resulting in a detainee being
unaware of critical allegations relied upon by the government to order his detention; and the fact
that the detainee’s ability to confront witnesses may be “more theoretical than real,”215 given the
minimal limitations placed upon the admission of hearsay evidence.
While the Court did not determine whether the CSRTs, as presently constituted, satisfy due
process standards, it agreed with petitioners that there was “considerable risk of error in the
tribunal’s findings of fact.”216 “[G]iven that the consequence of error may be detention for the
duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too serious to ignore.”217
The Court held that for either the writ of habeas or an adequate substitute to function as an
effective remedy for petitioners, a court conducting a collateral proceeding must have the ability
to (1) correct errors in the CSRT process; (2) assess the sufficiency of the evidence against the
detainee; and (3) admit and consider relevant exculpatory evidence that was not introduced in the
prior proceeding.
The Court held that the DTA review process is a facially inadequate substitute for habeas review.
It listed a number of potential constitutional infirmities in the review process, including the
absence of provisions (1) empowering the D.C. Circuit to order release from detention; (2)
permitting petitioners to challenge the President’s authority to detain them indefinitely; (3)
enabling the appellate court to review or correct the CSRT’s findings of fact; and (4) permitting
the detainee to present exculpatory evidence discovered after the conclusion of CSRT
proceedings. As a result, the Court deemed 2006 MCA § 7’s application of the DTA review
process to petitioners as failing to provide an adequate substitute for habeas, therefore effecting
an unconstitutional suspension of the writ.
In light of this conclusion, the Court held that petitioners could immediately pursue habeas
review in federal district court, without first obtaining review of their CSRT designations from
the D.C. Circuit as would otherwise be required under the DTA review process. While prior
jurisprudence recognized that prisoners are generally required to exhaust alternative remedies

213 Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229 at 2266-67.
214 Id. at 2268.
215 Id. at 2269.
216 Id. at 2270.
217 Id.
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before seeking federal habeas relief, the Court found that petitioners in the instant case were
entitled to a prompt habeas hearing, given the length of their detention. The Court stressed,
however, that except in cases of undue delay, federal courts should generally refrain from
considering habeas petitions of detainees being held as enemy combatants until after the CSRT
had an opportunity to review their status. Acknowledging that the government possesses a
“legitimate interest in protecting sources and methods of intelligence gathering,” the Court
announced that it expected courts reviewing Guantanamo detainees habeas claims to use
“discretion to accommodate this interest to the greatest extent possible,” so as to avoid
“widespread dissemination of classified information.”218
Implications of Boumediene
As a result of the Boumediene decision, detainees currently held at Guantanamo may petition a
federal district court for habeas review of status determinations made by a CSRT. However, the
full consequences of the Boumediene decision are likely to be significantly broader. While the
petitioners in Boumediene sought habeas review of their designation as enemy combatants, the
Court’s ruling that the constitutional writ of habeas extends to Guantanamo suggests that
detainees may also seek judicial review of claims concerning unlawful conditions of treatment or
confinement or to protest a planned transfer to the custody of another country.219
The conduct of trials before military commissions at Guantanamo may also be affected by
Boumediene, as enemy combatants may now potentially raise constitutional arguments against
their trial and conviction. Aliens convicted of war crimes before military commissions may also
potentially seek habeas review of their designation as an enemy combatant by the CSRT, a
designation that served as a legal requisite for their subsequent prosecution before a military
commission.
Although the Boumediene Court held that DTA review procedures were an inadequate substitute
for habeas, it made “no judgment as to whether the CSRTs, as currently constituted, satisfy due
process standards,” and emphasized that “both the DTA and the CSRT process remain intact.”220
Whether these procedures violate due process standards, facially or as applied in a given case,
and whether a particular detainee is being unlawfully held, are issues that will be addressed by the
District Court when reviewing the habeas claims of Guantanamo detainees.
Over 200 habeas petitions have been filed on behalf of Guantanamo detainees in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia. In the aftermath of the Boumediene ruling, the District Court

218 Id. at 2275.
219 See Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229 at 2274 (“In view of our holding we need not discuss the reach of the writ with
respect to claims of unlawful conditions of treatment or confinement.”).
220 Id. at 2275. Whether the 2006 MCA continues to preclude judicial consideration of such claims is a subject that has
not been definitely resolved. In the aftermath of Boumediene, district court judges have continued to give effect to
MCA § 7(a)(2), which bars judicial review of claims relating to conditions of detainees’ confinement. See Khadr v.
Bush, 587 F.Supp.2d 225, 235 (D.D.C.,2008) (“the Supreme Court appears to have left ... [the MCA’s bar on judicial
review of conditions of detention] undisturbed”); In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, 577 F.Supp.2d 312, 314
(D.D.C.2008) (Hogan, J.) (“Cognizant of the long-standing rule of severability, this Court, therefore, holds that MCA §
7(a)(2) remains valid and strips it of jurisdiction to hear a detainee’s claims that ‘relat[e] to any aspect of the detention,
transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement ... ’”). See also In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, 570
F.Supp.2d 13 (D.D.C.2008) (Urbina, J.) (holding that MCA § 7(a)(2) was not invalidated by Boumediene, but declining
to decide whether constitutional writ of habeas permits challenges to conditions of confinement).
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adopted a resolution for the coordination and management of Guantanamo cases. The resolution
calls for all current and future Guantanamo cases to be transferred by the judge to whom they
have been assigned to Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who has been designated to coordinate and
manage all Guantanamo cases so that they may be “addressed as expeditiously as possible as
required by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush.... ”221 Judge Hogan is responsible for
identifying and ruling on procedural issues common to the cases. The transferring judge will
retain the case for all other purposes, though Judge Hogan is to confer with those judges whose
cases raise common substantive issues, and he may address those issues with the consent of the
transferring judge. District Court Judges Richard J. Leon and Emmet G. Sullivan have declined to
transfer their cases for coordination, and it is possible that the three judges may reach differing
opinions regarding issues common to their respective cases.222 Litigation concerning detainees’
habeas claims remains ongoing. Final rulings have been reached in a few cases. In some
instances, detainees have been ordered released (including Lakhdar Boumediene),223 while in
others, detention has been deemed lawful.224
Executive Order to Close Guantanamo and
Halt Military Commission Proceedings
On January 22, 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13492, requiring that the
Guantanamo detention facility be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than a year from the
date of the Order.225 Any persons who continue to be held at Guantanamo at the time of closure
are to be either transferred to a third country for continued detention or release, or transferred to
another U.S. detention facility. The Order further requires specified officials to review all
Guantanamo detentions to assess whether the detainee should continue to be held by the United
States, transferred or released to a third country, or be prosecuted by the United States for
criminal offenses.226 Reviewing authorities are required to identify and consider the legal,
logistical, and security issues that would arise in the event that some detainees are transferred to
the United States. The Order also requires reviewing authorities to assess the feasibility of
prosecuting detainees in an Article III court. During the review period, the Secretary of Defense

221 U.S. Dist. Court for the District of Columbia, Resolution of the Executive Session, July 1, 2008, available at
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/public-docs/system/files/Guantanamo-Resolution070108.pdf.
222 For further discussion of recent habeas cases, see Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney & Rabea Benhalim, The
Emerging Law of Detention: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking, Brookings Institute, January 22, 2010,
available at http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0122_guantanamo_wittes_chesney.aspx.
223 See, e.g., el Gharani v. Bush, 593 F.Supp.2d 144 (D.D.C. 2009); Boumediene v. Bush, 579 F.Supp.2d 191(D.D.C.
2008) (granting five detainees’ habeas petitions). ProPublica has published a chart listing habeas challenges by
Guantanamo detainees that have been decided by federal judges. Chisun Lee, An Examination of 33 Gitmo Detainee
Lawsuits, Pro Publica, updated August 7, 2009, http://www.propublica.org/special/an-examination-of-31-gitmo-
detainee-lawsuits-722.
224 See, e.g., Sliti v. Bush, 592 F.Supp.2d 46 (D.D.C. 2008); Boumediene, 579 F. Supp. 2d, at 198 (denying one habeas
petition and granting five others).
225 Executive Order 13492, “Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and
Closure of Detention Facilities,” 74 Federal Register 4897, January 22, 2009.
226 Id. at § 4. The Order specifies that the review shall be conducted by the Attorney General (who shall also coordinate
the review process), the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director
of National Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as other officers or full- or part-time
employees of the U.S. government (as determined by the Attorney General, with the concurrence of the relevant
department head) with intelligence, counterterrorism, military, or legal expertise.
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was required to take steps to ensure that all proceedings before military commissions and the
United States Court of Military Commission Review were halted.
Although the deadline for the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility has not been met, the
Administration has stated that it remains committed to closing the facility as expeditiously as
possible. The Administration’s efforts to close the detention facility have been limited, in part, by
congressional measures limiting the transfer of detainees into the United States. In the first
session of the 111th Congress, several appropriations and authorizations measures were enacted
which effectively barred funds from being used to transfer any detainee into the United States for
release or purposes other than prosecution, and restrict funds from being used to transfer
detainees into the country to face prosecution prior to the submission of certain reports to
Congress.227
The full implications of these actions upon ongoing litigation involving persons currently
detained at Guantanamo remain to be seen. However, the closure of the Guantanamo detention
facility would raise a number of legal issues with respect to the individuals presently interned
there, particularly if those detainees are transferred to the United States. The nature and scope of
constitutional protections owed to detainees within the United States may be different than those
available to persons held at Guantanamo or elsewhere. This may have implications for the
continued detention or prosecution of persons transferred to the United States. Although the scope
of constitutional protections owed to Guantanamo detainees remains a matter of legal dispute, it
is clear that the procedural and substantive due process protections of the Constitution apply to all
persons within the United States, regardless of their citizenship.228 Accordingly, detainees
transferred to the United States might be able to more successfully pursue legal challenges against
aspects of their detention that allegedly infringe upon constitutional protections owed to them.229
Redefining U.S. Detention Authority
In March 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new definitional standard for the
government’s authority to detain terrorist suspects, which does not use the phrase “enemy
combatant” to refer to persons who may be properly detained.230 Under this new definition, the
Administration claims that:
The President has the authority to detain persons that the President determines planned,
authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,
and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the
authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida
forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its

227 Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009 (P.L. 111-32), Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010
(P.L. 111-83), National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (P.L. 111-84), the Department of the Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-88), the Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2010 (P.L. 111-117), and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-118).
228 Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 693 (2001) (“the Due Process Clause applies to all ‘persons’ within the United
States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary or permanent”).
229 For further discussion and analysis, see CRS Report R40139, Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center: Legal
Issues, by Michael John Garcia et al.
230 DOJ Press Release, supra footnote 15; Detention Authority Memorandum, supra footnote 15
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coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly
supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.231
This definitional standard is largely similar to that used by the Bush Administration to detain
terrorist suspects as “enemy combatants.” Like the previous administration, the Obama
Administration claims the power to militarily detain members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda,
regardless of whether such persons were captured away from the battlefield in Afghanistan.232
However, there are a few differences in the standard used by the Bush and Obama
Administrations. Most notably, whereas the Bush Administration claimed the authority to detain
persons who supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces, the standard announced by the
Obama Administration expressly requires such support to be “substantial.” While the Obama
Administration claims that activities constituting “substantial support” will be developed in
application to individual cases, it has stated that it would not cover “unwitting or insignificant”
support.233
The Obama Administration has stated that this definitional standard is based upon the authority
provided by the AUMF, as informed by the laws of war. The Administration has also claimed that
this standard does “not rely on the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief independent of
Congress’s specific authorization.”234 The Bush Administration had previously argued that,
separate from the authority provided by the AUMF, the President has the independent authority as
Commander-in-Chief to order the detention of terrorist suspects. While the Obama
Administration has not expressly rejected this claim, it appears that the Administration will not
rely upon the notion of inherent constitutional authority to serve as a legal basis for the detention
of terrorist suspects.
The full implications of this change in language and intent remain to be seen.235 One issue that is
likely to be subject to debate is the Executive’s authority under the AUMF and traditional law-of-
war principles to detain members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban who did not directly participate in
battlefield hostilities. The nature of activities constituting “substantial support” for the groups
may also merit significant judicial attention.
The scope of the Executive’s detention authority under the AUMF and the law of war has been
subject to conflicting rulings in the D.C. Circuit. In 2009, several habeas courts reached different
conclusions regarding the scope of the President’s military detention authority. A few district
court judges held that the Executive has authority to detain persons who were “part of” or

231 Detention Authority Memorandum, supra footnote 15, at *2.
232 Detention Authority Memorandum, supra footnote 15 at *7-8.
233 Id. at *2.
234 DOJ Press Release, supra footnote 15.
235 It should also be noted that the new definitional standard announced in the Detention Authority Memorandum,
supra footnote 15, refers only to detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo, and not those persons detained at
other facilities (e.g., the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan). However, the Obama Administration subsequently made
clear in court filings and congressional reports that the same definitional standard would also be used to justify the
detention of suspected belligerents held at Bagram. See Department of Justice, Brief for Respondent-Appellants, filed
September 14, 2009, Al Maqaleh v. Gates, No. 09-5265 (D.C. Cir.) (employing same definitional framework for
detention authority as used with respect to detainees held at Guantanamo) (hereinafter “DOJ Brief”); Letter from
Phillip Cater, Dep. Asst. Sec. Defense for Detainee Policy, to Sen. Carl Levin, Chairman of Sen. Armed Serv. Comm.,
July 14, 2009 (included as attachment to DOJ Brief, supra) (hereinafter “Bagram Policy Guidance”). Both the DOJ
Brief and Bagram Policy Guidance are available at http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/US-
Bagram-brief-9-14-09.pdf.
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“substantially supported” Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces, so long as those terms are
understood to include only those persons who were members of the enemy organizations’ armed
forces at the time of capture.236 Other district court judges held that that the Executive has
authority under the AUMF and the law of war to detain persons who were “part of” the Taliban,
Al Qaeda, or associated forces, but lacks authority to detain non-members who provide “support”
to such organizations (though such support may be considered when determining whether a
detainee was “part of” one of these groups).237
In January 2010, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals considered the scope of
Executive’s detention authority in the case of Al-Bihani v. Obama.238 In an opinion supported in
full by two members of the panel,239 the appellate court endorsed the definitional standard for the
Executive’s detention authority that had initially been asserted by the Bush Administration (a
standard which was later somewhat circumscribed by the Obama Administration240); namely, that
the President may detain those persons who were “part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda
forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition
partners.”241 While the panel concluded that either support for or membership in an AUMF-
targeted organization may be independently sufficient to justify detention, it declined “to explore
the outer bounds of what constitutes sufficient support or indicia of membership to meet the
detention standard.”242 It did, however, note that this standard would, for example, permit the
detention of a “civilian contractor” who “purposefully and materially supported” an AUMF-
targeted organization through “traditional food operations essential to a fighting force and the
carrying of arms.”243 Notwithstanding the government’s reliance on the law of war to interpret the
scope of the AUMF and seemingly in conflict with Supreme Court discussion of the issue, the
panel rejected the idea that the international law of war has any relevance to the courts’
interpretation of the scope of the detention power conferred by the AUMF.244 The standard
endorsed by the panel will be controlling for the D.C. Circuit unless the decision is overturned

236 Gherebi v. Obama, 609 F.Supp.2d 43 (D.D.C.,2009) (Walton, J.); Al-Adahi v. Obama, 2009 WL 2584685 (D.D.C.,
August 21, 2009) (Kessler, J.).
237 Hamlily v. Obama, 616 F.Supp.2d 63 (D.D.C. 2009) (Bates, J.); Mattan v. Obama, 618 F. Supp. 2d 24 (D.D.C.
2009) (Lamberth, C.J.). In assessing whether an individual was “part of” the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or associated forces,
several habeas judges have considered whether “the individual functions or participates within or under the command
structure of the organization—i.e. whether he receives and executes orders or directions.” Hamlily, 616 F.Supp.2d at
75; Al Odah v. United States, 648 F. Supp. 2d 1, 6 (D.D.C., August 24, 2009) (Kollar-Kotelly, J.) (citing Hamlily);
Awad v. Obama, 646 F. Supp. 2d 20, 23 (D.D.C., August 12, 2009) (Robertson, J.) (same).
238 Al-Bihani v. Obama, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2010).
239 A third member of the panel issued a separate opinion concurring with the majority’s judgment. However, the
opinion did not clearly endorse the majority’s view as to scope of the Executive’s detention authority. See id., 2010 WL
10411 at *14-15 (Williams, J., concurring) (arguing that petitioner was detainable on account of being “part of” an
AUMF-targeted organization, but not deciding whether a person could be detained on account of “support” for a
targeted organization that he was not also a “part of”).
240 See supra footnote 15. In contrast, the Obama Administration espouses a standard that specifies that such support
must be “substantial.”
241 Al-Bihani, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411 at *2.
242 Id. at *4.
243 Id. at *4-5. The panel found that even if petitioner was not a member of an AUMF-targeted organization, his service
as a cook for a military brigade affiliated with Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, in addition to his accompaniment of the
brigade during military operations, constituted sufficient grounds for his detention. Id.
244 Id. at *3; id. at *16 (Williams, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (contrasting majority position
with the Supreme Court plurality opinion in Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 521 statement that the Court’s understanding of the
AUMF “is based on longstanding law-of-war principles”).
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either by the Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc or the Supreme Court, or unless Congress
takes up Judge Brown’s separate invitation to craft appropriate habeas standards for detainee
cases.245
Constitutional Considerations and Options for
Congress
The Supreme Court decision in Boumediene holding that the DTA violates the Constitution’s
Suspension Clause (article I, § 9, cl. 2) leaves open a number of constitutional questions
regarding the scope of the Writ of Habeas Corpus and options open to Congress to make rules for
the detention of suspected terrorists. The following sections provide a brief background of habeas
corpus in the United States, outline some proposals for responding to the Boumediene holding,
and discuss relevant constitutional considerations.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus (ad subjiciendum), also known as the Great Writ, has its origin in
Fourteenth Century England.246 It provides the means for those detained by the government to ask
a court to order their warden to explain the legal authority for their detention. In the early days of
the Republic, its primary use was to challenge executive detention without trial or bail, or
pursuant to a ruling by a court without jurisdiction, but the writ has expanded over the years to
include a variety of collateral challenges to convictions or sentences based on alleged violations
of fundamental constitutional rights.247 The habeas statute provides jurisdiction to hear petitions
by persons claiming that they are held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or
treaties of the United States.”248 A court reviewing a petition for habeas corpus does not
determine the guilt or innocence of the petitioner; rather, it tests the legality of the detention and
the custodian’s authority to detain. If the detention is not supported by law, the detainee is to be
released.249 Minor irregularities in trial procedures that do not amount to violations of
fundamental constitutional rights are generally to be addressed on direct appeal.250
Article I, § 9, cl. 2, of the Constitution provides: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may
require it.” Given the emphasis the Rasul Court had placed on the distinction between the
statutory and constitutional entitlement to habeas corpus, it might have seemed reasonable to
suppose that Congress retained the power to revoke by statute what it had earlier granted without
offending either the Court or the Constitution, without regard to establishing a public safety
justification. However, as the Boumediene case demonstrates, the special status accorded the Writ
by the Suspension Clause complicates matters.

245 Id. at *16 (Brown, J. concurring).
246 For a general background and description of related writs, see 39 AM. JUR. 2d. Habeas Corpus § 1 (1999).
247 See generally S. DOC. NO. 108-17 at 848 et seq.
248 Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
249 Ex parte Watkins, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 193, 201 (1830) (Marshall, C.J.) (“The writ of habeas corpus is a high
prerogative writ, known to the common law, the great object of which is the liberation of those who may be imprisoned
without sufficient cause.”).
250 39 AM. JUR. 2d. Habeas Corpus § 27 (1999).
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The relevance of the distinction between a “statutory” and a “constitutional” privilege of habeas
corpus is not entirely clear. The federal courts’ power to review petitions under habeas corpus has
historically relied on statute,251 but it has been explained that the Constitution obligates Congress
to provide “efficient means by which [the Writ] should receive life and activity.”252 While the
Court has stated that “at the absolute minimum, the Suspension Clause protects the writ ‘as it
existed in 1789,’”253 it has also presumed that “the Suspension Clause of the Constitution refers to
the writ as it exists today, rather than as it existed in 1789.”254 The Boumediene Court declined to
adopt a date of reference by which the constitutional scope of the writ is to be judged.255
Accordingly, it remains unclear whether statutory enhancements of habeas review can ever be
rolled back without implicating the Suspension Clause.256 The constitutionally mandated scope of
the writ may turn on the same kinds of “objective factors and practical considerations” that the
Court stated would determine the territorial scope of the writ.
Under Boumediene, it appears that Congress’s ability to revoke altogether the courts’ jurisdiction
over habeas petitions for certain classes of persons is constrained by the Constitution, but
Congress has the power to impose some procedural regulations that may limit how courts
consider such cases.257 Congress retains the option of withdrawing habeas jurisdiction if it
provides an effective and adequate alternative means of pursuing relief.258 The Court’s opinion in
Boumediene did not fully delineate the lower bounds of what the Court might consider as
necessary either to preserve the constitutional scope of the writ or to provide an adequate
substitute, but indicated that the prisoners are entitled to “a meaningful opportunity to
demonstrate that [they are] being held pursuant to the erroneous application or interpretation of
relevant law.”259 A more direct option to affect the outcome of habeas cases brought by detainees
may involve enacting a clear statutory definition of who may be detained and the purpose of the
detention, along with an appropriate procedure designed to distinguish those who meet the
definition from those who do not. Such an approach could potentially increase certainty with
respect to courts’ decisions regarding whether the detention of particular alleged enemy
combatants comports with statutes and treaties, although constitutionally based claims may
remain less predictable.

251 Ex parte Bollman, 8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 75 (1807).
252 Id. at 94.
253 INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 301 (U.S. 2001).
254 Felker v. Tupin, 518 U.S. 663 (1996)(citing Swain, 430 U.S. 372).
255 See Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2248 (“ The Court has been careful not to foreclose the possibility that the protections
of the Suspension Clause have expanded along with post-1789 developments that define the present scope of the
writ.”).
256 Cf. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 340 n.5 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissenting)(“If ... the writ could not be suspended within the
meaning of the Suspension Clause until Congress affirmatively provided for habeas by statute, then surely Congress
may subsequently alter what it had initially provided for, lest the Clause become a one-way ratchet.”).
257 Cf. Felker, 518 U.S. 663 (Holding that restrictions on successive petitions for habeas corpus by prisoners convicted
in state courts did not suspend the writ, but merely applied a modified res judicata rule to control abuse of the writ);
Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. 2229 at 2276-77 (explaining that some reasonable regulations on habeas cases to relieve
governmental burden or preserve security will be permissible).
258 See United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205 (1952); Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424 (1962); Swain , 430 U.S. 372
(1977); Felker, 518 U.S. 651 (1996); St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289.
259 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. 2229 at 2266.
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Congress could formally suspend the writ with respect to the detainees, although it is unclear
whether Congress’s views regarding the requirements of public safety are justiciable.260 If they
are, then a reviewing court’s assessment of the constitutionality of habeas-suspending legislation
would likely turn on whether Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks upon the United States qualify as a
“rebellion or invasion,” and whether the court finds that “the public safety” requires the
suspension of the writ.
Congress might be able to impose some limitations upon judicial review of CSRT determinations
if it strengthened the procedural protections afforded to detainees in CSRT status hearings.
Legislation addressing some or all of the potential procedural inadequacies in the CSRT process
identified in Boumediene might permit judicial review of CSRT determinations to be further
streamlined.
In 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey recommended that Congress enact new legislation
to eliminate the DTA appeals process and make habeas corpus the sole avenue for detainees to
challenge their detention in civilian court, and also to eliminate challenges to conditions of
confinement or transfers out of U.S. custody. In a speech before the American Enterprise Institute
on July 21, 2008,261 Attorney General Mukasey discussed this suggestion along with five other
points he felt Congress should address:
• Courts should be prohibited from ordering that an alien captured and detained
abroad be brought to the United States for court proceedings, or be admitted and
released into the United States.
• Procedures should be put in place to ensure that intelligence information,
including sources and methods, are protected from disclosure to terrorist
suspects.
• Detainees awaiting trial by military commission should be prevented from
bringing habeas petitions until the completion of their trials.
• Congress should reaffirm the authority to detain as enemy combatants persons
who have “engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported al Qaeda, the Taliban,
and associated organizations.”
• Congress should establish sensible procedures for habeas challenges by
assigning one district court exclusive jurisdiction over the cases, with one judge
deciding common legal issues; by adopting “rules that strike a reasonable balance
between the detainees’ rights to a fair hearing ... and our national security needs
...” that would “not provide greater protection than we would provide to
American citizens held as enemy combatants in this conflict”; and ensuring that
court proceedings “are not permitted to interfere with the mission of our armed
forces.”
Other proposals that have been floated include the creation of a new national security court to
authorize preventive detention of terror suspects262 or the use of civilian or military courts to

260 The Boumediene Court did not address the matter because the 2006 MCA did not purport to act as a formal
suspension of the writ. Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2262.
261 The Attorney General’s prepared statement is available at http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/mukasey-curb-courts-
powers-on-detainees/.
262 See Improving Detainee Policy: Handling Terrorism Detainees within the American Justice System, Hearing before
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prosecute all detainees who cannot be released to their home country or another country willing
to take them. Among the issues associated with prosecuting all of the detainees in civilian court is
that the detainees may not have committed any crimes cognizable in federal court. Persons
accused of engaging in terrorist acts (including attempts, conspiracies and the like) against the
United States could likely be prosecuted,263 but jurisdiction over offenses involving the provision
of material support to a terrorist organization abroad is somewhat more limited, and for acts
occurring prior to 2004, included only persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.264
Congress could also take no action and allow the courts to address the issues in the course of
deciding the habeas petitions already docketed.
Scope of Challenges
Whether Congress enacts legislation to guide the courts or permits courts to resolve the habeas
cases as they now stand, courts will be faced with determining the scope of the writ as it applies
to detainees in Guantanamo and perhaps elsewhere outside the United States. Although the
Boumediene Court held that DTA review procedures were an inadequate substitute for habeas, it
expressly declined to assess “the content of the law that governs” the detention of aliens at
Guantanamo.265 Nonetheless, the Supreme Court identified a number of potential deficiencies in
the status review process that necessitated habeas review of CSRT determinations, including the
detainee’s lack of counsel during the hearings; the presumption of validity accorded to the
government’s evidence; procedural and practical limitations upon the detainee’s ability to present
evidence rebutting the government’s charges against him and to confront witnesses; potential
limitations on the detainee’s ability to introduce exculpatory evidence; and limitations on the
detainee’s ability to learn about the nature of the government’s case against him to the extent that
it is based upon classified evidence.266 Whether these procedures violate due process standards,
facially or as applied in a given case, and whether a particular detainee is being unlawfully held,
are issues that will be addressed by the district court when reviewing the habeas claims of
Guantanamo detainees.
Boumediene considered challenges to the legality of detention, the issue at the heart of most of
the habeas challenges brought by Guantanamo detainees to date. However, there are also some
cases challenging the conditions under which a detainee is being held. These two categories of
challenges may involve different procedural routes and the application of different constitutional
rights. The extent to which Congress may limit the scope of challenges Guantanamo detainees

(...continued)
the Senate Judiciary Committee, June 4, 2008. For a review and criticism of some proposals, see the Constitution
Project, A Critique of “National Security Courts,” available at http://www.constitutionproject.org/pdf/
Critique_of_the_National_Security_Courts.pdf.
263 See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2332 (prescribing penalties for homicides of U.S. nationals abroad and other violence directed
at the United States, so long as the act is “intended to coerce, intimidate, or retaliate against a government or a civilian
population”); 18 U.S.C. § 2232b (acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries).
264 See 18 U.S.C. § 2339B (provision of material support to designated terrorist organization prior to amendment by
P.L. 108-458, § 6603(d), December 17, 2004); see also 18 U.S.C. § 2339 (proscribing harboring or concealing
terrorists, but only after October 26, 2001 enactment of P.L. 107-56, title VIII, § 803(a)). The Ex Post Facto Clause
prevents prosecution for charges that would not have been applicable when the offense occurred, U.S. CONST. art. 1, §
9, cl. 3.
265 Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229 at 67.
266 See Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229 at 37-38, 54-56.
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may bring may turn on the unresolved question of which constitutional rights apply to aliens
detained in territory abroad. If detainees are transferred into the United States, the degree to
which Congress may limit their access to the courts may be subject to further constitutional
constraints.
The Supreme Court has not directly addressed whether there must exist a judicial forum to
vindicate all constitutional rights. Justice Scalia has pointed out that there are particular cases,
such as political questions cases, where all constitutional review is in effect precluded.267 Other
commentators point to sovereign immunity and the ability of the government to limit the
remedies available to plaintiffs.268 However, the Court has, in cases involving particular rights,
generally found a requirement that effective judicial remedies must be available.269 Although the
extent of constitutional rights enjoyed by aliens outside the territory of the United States is
subject to continuing debate, the right to liberty enjoyed by aliens within the United States, except
when deprived of it in accordance with due process of law, seems well established.
The Fact and Length of Detention
Unlike the appeals process under the DTA, which is no longer available to detainees as a result of
the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Bismullah,270 habeas challenges may also permit challenges to
detention not based solely on the adequacy of CSRT procedures. It is unclear how much of a role
CSRT proceedings will play in habeas cases or whether courts will abstain from hearing cases
that have not yet received a CSRT ruling (should such a case occur). There is no statutory
requirement that all detainees receive a CSRT determination in order to be detained, nor that
detainees receive any kind of a hearing within any certain period of time after their capture. This
might have left some detainees without effective means to pursue a DTA challenge. Moreover, it
appears that some detainees who were determined by CSRTs to be properly classified as enemy
combatants have been released from Guantanamo without a new determination, which may call
into question the importance of the CSRT procedure as the primary means for obtaining release
and therefore, the sole focus of a collateral challenge. Detainees may also be transferred or
released based on the results of periodic reviews conducted by Administrative Review Boards
(ARBs)271 to determine whether the detainee is no longer a threat or that it is in the interest of the
United States and its allies to release the prisoner. The DTA provided no opportunity to appeal the
result of an ARB finding and no means of challenging a decision not to convene a new CSRT to
consider new evidence.272
The scope and standard for habeas review involving detainees has been the subject of several
orders by judges for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In such proceedings, the

267 486 U.S. at 612-13 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
268 Bartlett v. Bowen, 816 F.2d 695, 719-720 (1987)(Bork, J., dissenting).
269 See e.g., First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. Los Angeles County, 482 U.S. 304
(1987)(holding that the Constitution mandates effective remedies for takings).
270 Bismullah, 551 F.3d at 1075.
271 See DOD Press Release, “DoD Announces Draft Detainee Review Policy” (March 3, 2004), available at
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20040303-0403.html; Memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense,
Revised Implementation of Administrative Review Procedures for Enemy Combatants Detained at U.S. Navy Base,
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (July 14, 2006), available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2006/
d20060809ARBProceduresMemo.pdf.
272 CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote 38, at encl. 10 (implementing Detainee Treatment Act provisions).
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government has the burden of demonstrating, by a preponderance of the evidence, the lawfulness
of the petitioner’s detention.273 The government is also required to explain its legal justification
for detaining the petitioner, including, where appropriate, the standard it uses to define the scope
of its detention authority. 274
The government is also required to provide the petitioner with all reasonably available
exculpatory evidence.275 In December 2008, Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who is coordinating
and managing most Guantanamo cases for the D.C. District Court, issued a case management
order that, among other things, requires the government to disclose any evidence it has relied
upon to justify the petitioner’s detention.276 With respect to classified information, Judge Hogan’s
order requires the government, unless granted an exception by the district court judge considering
the case’s merits, to “provide the petitioner’s counsel with the classified information, provided the
petitioner’s counsel is cleared to access such information. If the government objects to providing
the petitioner’s counsel with the classified information, the government shall move for an
exception to disclosure.” There is no requirement that classified information be provided to a
petitioner himself. Moreover, the order rescinds the requirement of an earlier case management
order that petitioners receive an “adequate substitute” for any classified information disclosed to
the court or petitioners’ counsel.277
In January 2010, a D.C. Circuit panel held in the case of Al-Bihani v. Obama that the procedural
protections afforded in habeas cases involving wartime detainees do not need to mirror those
provided to persons in the traditional criminal law context. Judge Janice Rogers Brown, writing
for herself and another member of the panel, argued that a lower procedural standard may exist in
habeas cases involving challenges to wartime detention, as “national security interests are at their
zenith and the rights of the alien petitioner [are] at their nadir.”278 The government needs only to
support its detention using a “preponderance of evidence” standard.279 The panel also held that
habeas courts assessing the validity of a petitioner’s detention could properly consider hearsay
evidence proffered by the government in support of his detention. According to the majority
opinion,280 “the question a habeas court must ask when presented with hearsay is not whether it is

273 See In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, No. 08-0442, 2008 WL 4858241, Order, at *3 (D.D.C. November 6,
2008) (Hogan, J.) (hereinafter “November Order”).
274 See id. at * 1; el Gharani v. Bush, 593 F.Supp.2d 144 (D.D.C. 2009) (Leon, J.) (finding that when the government
justifies the detention of a habeas petitioner on the ground that he is an “enemy combatant,” it must provide a
definition of the term).
275 See November Order, supra footnote 273, at *1. See also Boumediene v. Bush, No. 04-1166, Order (D.D.C. August
27, 2008) (Leon, J.), available at http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/leon-case-manage-order-
8-27-08.pdf (requiring government to provide “any evidence contained in the material reviewed in developing the
return for the petitioner, and in preparation for the hearing for the petitioner, that tends materially to undermine the
Government’s theory as to the lawfulness of petitioner’s detention”). Habeas judges have found that information
compiled by the Task Force established under Executive Order 134992 (concerning the proposed closure of the
Guantanamo detention facility) is “reasonably available evidence” that may be considered in the context of a
Guantanamo detainee’s habeas petition. See, e.g., Bin Attash v. Obama, 628 F.Supp.2d 24, 38 (D.D.C. 2009) (citing
rulings in several habeas cases).
276 In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, No. 08-0442, 2008 WL 5245890, Order, at *1 (D.D.C., December 16,
2008) (Hogan, J.).
277 November Order, supra footnote 273, at *2.
278 Al-Bihani v. Obama, No. 09-5051, 2010 WL 10411, at *9 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2010).
279 Id.
280 Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams, the third member of the Al-Bihani panel, declined to join the majority’s analysis
regarding the procedures used by the habeas court to review the petitioner’s claim, finding this discussion unnecessary
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admissible—it is always admissible—but what probative weight to ascribe to whatever indicia of
reliability it exhibits.”281
Conditions of Detention
Although it appears less common for challenges to prison conditions to be entertained under
habeas review, such cases have been heard by federal courts on habeas petitions.282 Persons
incarcerated in federal prisons may also ask a district court to address such complaints using their
general jurisdiction to consider claims that arise under the Constitution,283 by means of a writ of
mandamus.284 These writs, which are directed against government officials, have been used to
require those officials to act in compliance with constitutional requirements. Although these
challenges are often denied on the merits or on procedural grounds, cases have been brought
based on the First Amendment,285 Sixth Amendment,286 Eighth Amendment287 and various other
grounds.288
The Boumediene Court declined to discuss whether challenges to conditions of detention are
within the constitutional scope of the writ as it applies to Guantanamo detainees.289 A variety of
challenges has been raised by detainees in Guantanamo regarding conditions of their detention,
including such issues as whether prisoners can be held in solitary confinement,290 when they can

(...continued)
“since the facts that Al Bihani says are correct readily yield a ruling that his detention is legally permissible.” Id. at 16
(Williams, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
281 Id. at 10.
282 “A motion pursuant to § 2241 generally challenges the execution of a federal prisoner’s sentence, including such
matters as the administration of parole, computation of a prisoner’s sentence by prison officials, prison disciplinary
actions, prison transfers, type of detention and prison conditions.” Jiminian v. Nash, 245 F.3d 144 (2d Cir. 2001). See,
e.g., Rickenbacker v. United States, 365 F. Supp. 2d 347 (E.D.N.Y. 2005) (challenging failure to provide drug and
psychiatric treatment in accordance with sentencing court’s recommendation).
283 28 U.S.C. § 1331. See Caldwell v. Miller, 790 F.2d 589 (7th Cir. 1986).
284 Russell Donaldson, Mandamus, under 28 U.S.C.A. §1361, To Obtain Change in Prison Condition or Release of
Federal Prisoner, 114 A.L.R. Fed. 225 (2005). Relief in mandamus is generally available where: (1) the plaintiff can
show a clear legal right to the performance of the requested action; (2) the duty of the official in question is clearly
defined and nondiscretionary; (3) there is no other adequate remedy available to the plaintiff; (4) there are other
separate jurisdictional grounds for the action. Id. at 1(a). A writ of mandamus may issue only where “the duty to be
performed is ministerial and the obligation to act peremptory, and clearly defined. The law must not only authorize the
demanded action, but require it; the duty must be clear and undisputable.” Ali v. Ashcroft, 350 F. Supp. 2d 28, 65
(D.D.C. 2004), quoting Shoshone-Bannock Tribes v. Reno, 56 F.3d 1476, 1479 (D.C. Cir. 1995).
285 See Long v. Parker, 390 F.2d. 816 (3rd Cir. 1968) (prisoner suit to obtain access to religious weekly newspaper
stated a valid cause of action worthy of a factual hearing).
286 Stover v. Carlson, 413 F. Supp. 718 (D. Conn. 1976) (ending federal prison practice of opening privileged
communications outside of prisoner’s presence).
287 Fullwood v. Clemmer, 206 F. Supp. 370 (D.D.C. 1962) (keeping prisoner in solitary confinement for more than two
years for minor disciplinary infractions violates the Eighth Amendment). It should be noted that where a prisoner has
not yet been convicted of a crime, a challenge to conditions of detentions may sound in Due Process rather than as an
Eighth Amendment challenge. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979).
288 See generally Donaldson, supra footnote 284.
289 See Boumediene, 128 S. Ct. 2229 at 2274 (“In view of our holding we need not discuss the reach of the writ with
respect to claims of unlawful conditions of treatment or confinement.”).
290 Paul Shukovsky, Terrorism Suspect’s Suit Tells of U.S. Abuse: Documents in Guantanamo Case Describe Extreme
Isolation, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, August 6, 2004, at A1.
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be transferred,291 or whether they can have contact with relatives.292 Although some of these were
brought as habeas corpus cases,293 Guantanamo detainees have also sought relief from the courts
using the All Writs Act,294 principally to prevent their transfer to other countries without notice,295
but for other reasons too.296 Use of the All Writs Act by a court is an extraordinary remedy,
generally not invoked if there is an alternative remedy available.297
In April 2009, a D.C. Circuit panel interpreted Boumediene as invalidating the MCA’s court-
stripping provisions with respect “to all habeas claims brought by Guantanamo detainees, not
simply with respect to so-called ‘core’ habeas claims.”298 In that case, the panel found that habeas
courts could consider not only Guantanamo detainees challenges to the legality of their detention,
but also their proposed transfer to another country (though habeas review of such transfers may
be quite limited).299 Accordingly, whether Guantanamo detainees may challenge their conditions
of confinement may depend on whether a reviewing court considers these conditions to be “a
proper subject of … habeas relief.”300 Habeas courts have thus far rejected challenges by
Guantanamo detainees relating to their conditions of detention.301
The rejection of challenges to conditions of confinement may be based, at least in part, upon the
opinion that any such claim by Guantanamo detainees does not derive from a constitutional
protection to which they are entitled. In February 2009, a D.C. Circuit panel held in the case of
Kiyemba v. Obama that the Constitution’s due process protections did not extend to non-citizen
detainees held at Guantanamo.302 The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of the panel’s
ruling later this term. Presuming that the panel’s holding concerning the due process rights of
Guantanamo detainees is not overturned, however, the ability of non-citizen detainees held
outside the United States to challenge the conditions of their detention may be quite limited. In
contrast, if detainees currently held at Guantanamo are transferred into the United States, they
might be able to more successfully pursue legal challenges against aspects of their detention that
allegedly infringe upon constitutional protections owed to them.

291 Al-Anazi v. Bush, 370 F. Supp. 2d 188 (D.D.C. 2005).
292 Josh White, Lawyers Seek Improved Conditions for Suicidal Detainee, WASH. POST, November 5, 2005, at A8.
293 See, e.g., In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases, 355 F. Supp. 2d 443, 480-81 (D.D.C. 2005)(rejecting claims on other
grounds).
294 All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651.
295 Belbach v. Bush, 520 F.3d 452, 456 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (holding the 2006 MCA leaves intact the presumptive
jurisdiction of federal courts to inquire into the constitutionality of a jurisdiction-stripping statute). See also Al Ansi v.
Bush, No. 08-1923, 2008 WL 5412360, Order (D.D.C., December 29, 2008) (requiring government to give court and
petitioner’s counsel 30 days’ notice prior to releasing or transferring petitioner from Guantanamo).
296 See El-Banna v. Bush, No. 04-1144, 2005 WL 1903561 (D.D.C. July 18, 2005) (seeking preservation of records
relating to treatment of detainees).
297 Al-Anazi v. Bush, 370 F. Supp. 2d 188, 196 (D.D.C. 2005).
298 Kiyemba v. Obama, 561 F.3d 509, 512-513 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
299 Id. at 513-514 (when executive branch has determined that a detainee will not be tortured if transferred to a
particular country, a habeas court may not second-guess this assessment).
300 Id. at 513.
301 See supra footnote 220.
302 Kiyemba v. Obama, 555 F.3d 1022, 1026-1027 (D.C. Cir. 2009).
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Available Remedy
Under Title 28, U.S. Code, a court conducting habeas review must “award the writ or issue an
order directing the respondent to show cause why the writ should not be granted, unless it appears
from the application that the detainee is not entitled to it.”303 The court can order either party to
expand the record by submitting additional information bearing on the petition.304 The court may
order hearings to assist it in determining the facts, and is authorized to “dispose of the matter as
law and justice require,”305 or in criminal cases, to vacate a sentence, grant a new trial, or order
that a prisoner be released.306
By contrast, the DTA review procedures did not address the remedies available to detainees who
prevail in a challenge. Detainees who succeed in persuading a CSRT that they are not enemy
combatants do not have an express right to release or even a right initially to be informed of the
CSRT’s decision. If the CSRT Director approves a finding that a detainee is no longer an enemy
combatant, the detainee may be held for as long as it takes the government to arrange for his
transfer to his home country or another country willing to provide asylum, during which time he
need not be told of the CSRT’s conclusion.307 According to one report of unclassified CSRT
records, in the event the CSRT Director disapproves of the finding, new CSRTs may be convened,
apparently without notifying or permitting the participation of the detainee, although the
government might present new evidence to the new panel.308
The Supreme Court viewed the lack of an express power permitting the courts to order the release
of a detainee as a factor relevant to the DTA’s inadequacy as a substitute proceeding.309 In the
context of CSRT determinations, the government suggested to the Court that remand for new
CSRT proceedings would be the appropriate remedy for a determination that an error of law was
made or that new evidence must be considered.310 Whether such a remedy would be acceptable
probably depends on whether measures are taken to decrease the risk of error under the CSRT
procedures.
The available remedy for Guantanamo detainees found to be unlawfully held by the United States
is an issue of ongoing litigation. The typical remedy for habeas claims is the release of the
individual being unlawfully detained.311 But given that detainees are being held in a military
facility in Cuba, it is unclear whether the order of their release is a practical remedy, particularly
in cases where the government is unable to effectuate a detainee’s transfer to a third country.

303 28 U.S.C. § 2243.
304 Rules Governing § 2255 Cases, Rule 7, 28 U.S.C.A. foll. § 2255 (applicable to prisoners subject to sentence of a
federal court).
305 28 U.S.C. § 2243.
306 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
307 CSRT Implementing Directive, supra footnote 38 at encl. 1, para. I(9)-(10).
308 See Mark Denbeaux et al., No-Hearing Hearings, CSRT: The Modern Habeas Corpus?, at 37-40 (2006), available
at http://law.shu.edu/news/final_no_hearing_hearings_report.pdf. The named author is a professor at Seton Hall
University School of Law and serves as counsel to two Guantanamo detainees.
309 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2271.
310 See Gov’t Br. in Opp. to Pet. for Reh’g, Boumediene v. Bush, No. 16-1195 (U.S.).
311 See, e.g., Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. __, 128 S.Ct. 2207, 2221 (2008) (“The typical remedy for ... [unlawful]
detention is, of course, release.”); Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 484 (1973) (“[T]he traditional function of the
writ is to secure release from illegal custody”).
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Whether or not a court would have the power to craft a habeas remedy for Guantanamo detainees
that permits their entry into the United States remains unresolved. The Supreme Court has
recognized that habeas relief “is at its core, an equitable remedy,”312 and judges have broad
discretion to fashion an appropriate remedy for a particular case. On the other hand, in the
immigration context, courts have long recognized that the political branches have plenary
authority over whether arriving aliens may enter the United States.313
As previously discussed, in October 2008, a federal district court ordered the release into the
United States of 17 Guantanamo detainees who were no longer considered enemy combatants,
finding that the political branches’ plenary authority in the immigration context did not
contravene the petitioners’ entitlement to an effective remedy to their unauthorized detention.314
However, the D.C. Circuit panel stayed the district court’s order pending appellate review,315 and
subsequently reversed the district court’s decision in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama, decided in
February 2009. Writing for the majority of the panel, Judge Randolph stated that federal courts
lacked the authority to order a non-citizen detainee’s entry and release into the United States. In
reaching this conclusion, the majority opinion cited long-standing Supreme Court jurisprudence
in the immigration context which recognized and sustained, “without exception ... the exclusive
power of the political branches to decide which aliens may, and which aliens may not, enter the
United States, and on what terms.”316 According to the majority, this jurisprudence made clear
that it was “not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review
the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.”317
The Kiyemba majority held that the district court lacked the legal authority to override the
Executive’s determination not to admit the petitioners into the United States. The majority held
that the district court’s order was not supported by federal statute or treaty. The majority also
found that aliens held at Guantanamo were not protected by the Due Process Clause of the
Constitution, and the district court’s order therefore could not be based upon a liberty interest
owed to the petitioners under the Constitution. The Kiyemba majority also found that the district
court’s order was improper to the extent that it was based on the notion that where there is a legal
right, there must also be a remedy. The majority stated that it did “not believe the maxim reflects
federal statutory or constitutional law.”318 While acknowledging that the Supreme Court’s
decision in Boumediene made clear that the constitutional writ of habeas extended to
Guantanamo detainees, the Kiyemba majority held that the constitutional writ of habeas did not
entitle petitioners to the “extraordinary remedy” of being ordered transferred and released into the
United States.319

312 Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 319 (1995).
313 Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 32 (1981) (“This Court has long held that an alien seeking initial admission to the
United States requests a privilege and has no constitutional rights regarding his application, for the power to admit or
exclude aliens is a sovereign prerogative”); Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 216 (1953)
(finding that an inadmissible alien’s “right to enter the United States depends on the congressional will, and courts
cannot substitute their judgment for the legislative mandate”).
314 In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation, 581 F.Supp.2d 33(D.D.C. 2008).
315 Kiyemba v. Bush, No. 08-5424, 2008 WL 4898963, Order (D.C. Cir., October 20, 2008) (per curiam).
316 Kiyemba, 555 F.3d at 1025-1026.
317 Id. at 1027 (quoting United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 543 (1950)).
318 Id.
319 Id. at 1028.
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Writing separately from the Kiyemba majority, Judge Rogers argued that the majority’s opinion
was “not faithful to Boumediene and would compromise both the Great Writ as a check on
arbitrary detention and the balance of powers over exclusion and admission and release of aliens
into the United States.”320 She would have found that the Executive has no independent authority
to detain aliens to prevent their entry into the United States, and would have held that a habeas
court has the power to order the conditional release of a Guantanamo detainee into the United
States when the Executive lacks authority to detain him. Nonetheless, she concurred with the
majority’s judgment that the district court’s order was improper, because the lower court had not
considered whether the Executive was authorized to detain the petitioners pursuant to U.S.
immigration laws even after it had determined that they were not “enemy combatants.”
The Supreme Court has agreed to review the appellate court’s ruling in the case of Kiyemba v.
Obama later this term.
Extraterritorial Scope of Constitutional Writ of Habeas
In Boumediene, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional writ of habeas extended to persons
detained at Guantanamo, even though they are held outside the de jure sovereign territory of the
United States. Left unresolved in the Court’s discussion of the extraterritorial application of the
Constitution is the degree to which the writ of habeas and other constitutional protections applies
to aliens detained in foreign locations other than Guantanamo (e.g., at military facilities in
Afghanistan and elsewhere, or at any undisclosed U.S. detention sites overseas). In April 2009, a
federal district court held that the constitutional writ of habeas extended to at least some
detainees held by the United States at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan.321
The Boumediene Court indicated that it would take a functional approach in resolving such
issues, taking into account “objective factors and practical concerns” in deciding whether the writ
extended to aliens detained outside U.S. territory. Practical concerns mentioned in the majority’s
opinion as relevant to an assessment of the writ’s extraterritorial application include the degree
and likely duration of U.S. control over the location where the alien is held; the costs of holding
the Suspension Clause applicable in a given situation, including the expenditure of funds to
permit habeas proceedings and the likelihood that the proceedings would compromise or divert
attention from a military mission; and the possibility that adjudicating a habeas petition would
cause friction with the host government.322 The Boumediene Court declined to overrule the
Court’s prior decision in Eisentrager, in which it found that convicted enemy aliens held in post-
WWII Germany were precluded from seeking habeas relief. Whether enemy aliens are held in a
territory that more closely resembles post-WWII Germany than present-day Guantanamo may
influence a reviewing court’s assessment of whether the writ of habeas reaches them, as well as
its assessment of the merits of the underlying claims.
In April 2009, District Court Judge John D. Bates found in the case of Al Maqaleh v. Gates that
the constitutional writ of habeas may extend to non-Afghan detainees currently held by the
United States at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan, when those detainees had
been captured outside of Afghanistan but were transferred to Bagram for long-term detention as

320 Id. at 1032 (Rogers, J., concurring).
321 Al Maqaleh v. Gates, 604 F.Supp.2d 205 (D.D.C. 2009).
322 Boumediene, 128 S.Ct. at 2261-62.
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enemy combatants. Judge Bates held that the circumstances surrounding the detention of the
petitioners in Al Maqaleh were “virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene – they are
[non-U.S.] citizens who were ... apprehended in foreign lands far from the United States and
brought to yet another country for detention”323 Applying the factors discussed in Boumediene as
being relevant to a determination of the extraterritorial scope of the writ of habeas corpus, Judge
Bates concluded that the writ extended to three of the four petitioners at issue in Al Maqaleh, who
were not Afghan citizens. The constitutional writ was not found to extend to a fourth petitioner
who was an Afghan citizen, however, because review of his habeas petition could potentially
cause friction with the Afghan government.324 This ruling has been appealed. Presuming that the
ruling is upheld, it could have significant ramifications for U.S. detention policy, as at least some
foreign detainees held outside the United States or Guantanamo could seek review of their
detention by a U.S. court. On September 14, 2009, the DOD announced modifications to the
administrative process used to review the status of aliens held at Bagram, which would afford
detainees greater procedural rights. The modified process does not contemplate judicial review of
administrative determinations regarding the detention of persons at Bagram.325
Use of Habeas Petitions to Challenge the Jurisdiction of Military Commissions
Whether detainees who are facing prosecution by a military commission may challenge the
jurisdiction of such tribunals prior to the completion of their trial remains unsettled, although the
district court has so far declined to enjoin military commissions.326 Supreme Court precedent
suggests that habeas corpus proceedings may be invoked to challenge the jurisdiction of a
military court even where habeas corpus has been suspended.327 Habeas may remain available to
defendants who can make a colorable claim not to be enemy belligerents within the meaning of
the MCA, and therefore to have the right not to be subject to military trial at all, perhaps without
necessarily having to await a verdict or exhaust the appeals process.328 Interlocutory challenges
contesting whether the charges make out a valid violation of the law of war, for example, seem
less likely to be entertained on a habeas petition.329

323 Al Maqaleh, 604 F. Supp. 2d at 208.
324 Id. at 229-230.
325 Under this new system, detainees would undergo a case review within 60 days of incarceration, with periodic review
occurring roughly every six months thereafter. Further, U.S. military members shall act as personal representatives to
assist detainees during the review process. DOJ Brief, supra footnote 235; Bagram Policy Guidance, supra footnote
235; Gerry J. Gilmore, “Bagram Detention Facility to Implement Case Review Panels,” American Forces Press
Service, September 14, 2009, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=55831.
326 See Khadr v. United States, No. 07-1405 (D.C. Cir. June 20, 2008); Hamdan v. Gates, No. 04-1519 (JR) (D.D.C.
July 18, 2008)(order denying injunction of military commission proceedings).
327 See ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 115-16 (1866); cf. ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 24-25 (1942)(dismissing
contention that presidential proclamation stripped Court of authority to review case, stating that “nothing in the
Proclamation precludes access to the courts for determining its applicability to the particular case”).
328 Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U.S. 738, 759 (1975)(finding judicial abstention is not appropriate in cases in which
individuals raise “ ‘substantial arguments denying the right of the military to try them at all,’ ” and in which the legal
challenge “turn[s] on the status of the persons as to whom the military asserted its power”); United States ex rel. Toth
v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 76 (1955). But see Al Odah v. Bush, 593 F. Supp. 2d 53 (D.D.C. 2009) (court would stay
consideration of habeas claims during course of military commission proceedings, but stay would not occur until
charges were referred to commission); Khadr v. Bush, 587 F. Supp. 2d 225 (D.D.C. 2008) (ordering stay in habeas case
to the extent that it raised issues that have been, will be, or can be raised in military commission proceedings against
petitioner and the subsequent appeals process).
329 Cf. New v. Cohen, 129 F.3d 639, 643 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
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Conclusion
The Executive’s policy of detaining wartime captives and suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo
Bay Naval Station has raised a host of novel legal questions regarding, among other matters, the
relative powers of the President and Congress to fight terrorism, as well as the power of the courts
to review the actions of the political branches. The DTA was Congress’s first effort to impose
limits on the President’s conduct of what the Bush Administration termed the “Global War on
Terror” and to prescribe a limited role for the courts. The Supreme Court’s decision striking the
DTA provision that attempted to eliminate the courts’ habeas jurisdiction may be seen as an
indication that the Court will continue to play a role in determining the ultimate fate of the
detainees at Guantanamo. However, the Court did not foreclose all options available to Congress
to streamline habeas proceedings involving detainees at Guantanamo or elsewhere in connection
with terrorism. Instead, it indicated that the permissibility of such measures will be weighed in
the context of relevant circumstances and exigencies.
As a general matter, the courts did not accept the Bush Administration’s view that the President
has inherent constitutional authority to detain those he suspects may be involved in international
terrorism. Rather, the courts have looked to the language of the AUMF and other legislation to
determine the contours of presidential power. The Supreme Court has interpreted the AUMF with
the assumption that Congress intended for the President to pursue the conflict in accordance with
traditional law-of-war principles, and has upheld the detention of a “narrow category” of persons
who fit the traditional definition of “enemy belligerent” under the law of war. Other courts have
been willing to accept a broader definition of enemy belligerency to permit the detention of
individuals who were not captured in circumstances suggesting their direct participation in
hostilities against the United States, but a plurality of the Supreme Court warned that a novel
interpretation of the scope of the law of war might cause their understanding of permissible
executive action to unravel. Consequently, Congress may be called upon to consider legislation to
support the full range of authority asserted by the executive branch in connection with the “war
on terror.” In the event the Court finds that the detentions in question are fully supported by
statutory authorization, whether on the basis of existing law or new enactments, the key issue is
likely to be whether the detentions comport with due process of law under the Constitution. In the
event that detainees currently held at Guantanamo are transferred into the United States, such
persons may receive more significant constitutional protections. These protections may inform
executive policy, legislative proposals, and judicial rulings concerning matters relating to
detainees’ treatment, continued detention, and access to federal courts.

Author Contact Information

Jennifer K. Elsea
Michael John Garcia
Legislative Attorney
Legislative Attorney
jelsea@crs.loc.gov, 7-5466
mgarcia@crs.loc.gov, 7-3873


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