Former Federal Judges to Release Habeas Report Ahead of Boumediene v. Bush Anniversary

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Jun 07, 2010, 11:41 ET

WASHINGTON, June 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --William S. Sessions, Former FBI Director and Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and Douglas K. Spaulding from Reed Smith LLP, Habeas Counsel to several Guantanamo detainees will release a new Habeas Report at a National Press Club Newsmaker press conference, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 10 in the Zenger Room at the National Press Building, 529 14th St., N.W., Washington, DC.

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Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court's historic Boumediene v. Bush ruling that the constitutionally guaranteed right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo for them to challenge their detentions in federal court, 16 of the nation's most respected former federal judges will release a new report demonstrating that habeas is working in these cases.

In the new report, Habeas Works: Federal Courts' Proven Capacity to Handle Guantanamo Cases, the judges review each of the Guantanamo habeas cases resolved by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to provide a clear picture of the federal court system's successful handling of complex evidence, lawfulness of detention determinations, and establishment of consistent procedural guidelines.

The research, published by Human Rights First and the Constitution Project, also dispels the suggestion that the courts are struggling to take on these cases and are in need of legislation to provide further guidelines. According to the judges, such a "legislative fix" is not only unnecessary, but would "throw the jurisprudence into disarray and require years of additional litigation just to return to the point we have now reached post-Boumediene." The charge leveled by certain commentators that federal courts are engaged in improper "lawmaking" reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the proper role of courts and judges in any common law system.

SOURCE National Press Club