Government renews Padilla plea
on Jan 3, 2006 at 4:36 pm
The Justice Department on Tuesday renewed its plea to the Supreme Court to order the prompt release of terrorism suspect Jose Padilla from military custody, and once more argued that his appeal to the Supreme Court is a dead issue, legally.
In a reply brief, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement urged the Court to reject Padilla’s request to take no action on where he is kept in custody until it considers his appeal — now scheduled for the Jan. 13 Conference.
Once again complaining that the Fourth Circuit Court is defying the wishes of President Bush, Clement suggested that the Court should reverse the Circuit Court’s order refusing Padilla’s transfer to civilian custody. The Solicitor General argued that the Supreme Court may approve that transfer without addressing any major questions about Executive-judicial relations. And, he argued, it could also do so without necessarily dealing with the question of whether Padilla’s pending appeal to the Justices is moot.
Nevertheless, the reply brief contended afresh that “the government believes this case is moot and does not fall within any exception to the mootness doctrine.”
And, attempting to show some solicitude for Padilla — who has now been held in a military jail for more than three and a half years — Clement contended that “a citizen remains detained in military custody as a result of the order of a court [the Fourth Circuit], not of a military officer or the President….The bottom line remains that, at this point, the basis for Padilla’s continued military detention as an enemy combatant is the Fourth Circuit’s mistaken order.”
A Supreme Court order approving Padilla’s transfer would not, of course, grant him a release. He would go immediately to a federal prison in Miami, to await a trial on terrorism-related criminal charges in civilian federal court there, sometime later this year.
The government’s application for Padilla’s transfer is Hanft v. Padilla (05-A-578). Padilla’s pending petition challenging his designation as an “enemy combatant” and the resulting prolonged detention is Padilla v. Hanft (05-533).
