The case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld is now pending in U.S. District Court in Washington (docket 04-1519) following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Salim Ahmed Hamdan’s favor last June.

UPDATE: 2 p.m. Thursday
U.S. District Judge James Robertson gave the Justice Department a week of added time to file its reply brief in the Hamdan case. The order also expanded the allowed length to 45 pages. The reply brief will explain the government’s rationale for its motion to dismiss the case under the new Military Commissions Act of 2006. The judge’s order made no mention of the Department’s request for a stay of the case. The request for additional time and an expanded length was made as an alternative to the stay request.

The Justice Department, in a move to head off a new ruling in the military tribunal case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, asked a federal judge on Wednesday to put the case on hold until after the D.C. Circuit Court rules on long-pending cases on detainee rights. If the judge does not stay the case, the Department said, it needed more time to file a reply to Hamdan’s brief on his right to continue his challenge to his detention and potential prosecution for war crimes. The government’s reply otherwise is due on Friday of this week.

The D.C. Circuit is weighing two packets of cases filed by detainees at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the latest round of briefing, those cases could be decided at any time.

In its motion on Wednesday seeking delay in Hamdan’s case, the Justice Department told U.S. District Judge James Robertson in Washington, D.C., that the Circuit Court cases involve similar issues — including the constitutionality of the new law passed by Congress seeking to strip courts from considering any habeas pleas by detainees. “The petitioners in those appeals,” the Department said, “raised a number of arguments similar to those raised” by Hamdan in District Court.

But it also noted that Hamdan had raised additional constitutional challenges in his District Court filings, and it said it had not had time to prepare a full response. So, if the case is not stayed, the Department asked for an additional two weeks — until Dec. 15 — to file their response.

On Thursday, Hamdan’s lawyers urged Judge Robertson not to stay the case, saying that the government has had sufficient notice and adequate time to get its brief done under an order issued by Judge Roberson on Oct. 27. Moreover, the attorneys said, “Hamdan would be incarcerated potentially for additional time” if the case were stayed. The government cannot show it will suffer any hardship if the case goes forward, Hamdan’s opposition argued. They also accused the Justice Department of engaging in “dilatory conduct” in waiting to file their latest plea shortly before the government brief was due.

(All detainees at Guantanamo Bay have their detention reviewed by the military’s Combat Status Review Tribunal. That procedure was set up in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions in 2004, in Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, giving detainees some right to challenge their detention. A new, largely critical study of the performance of these tribunals can be found here It is by an attorney for two of the detainees, Seton Hall professor Mark Denbeaux, and by attorney Joshua Denbeaux, with assistance from Seton Hall law students.)