Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled on the habeas rights of Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen who had challenged his designation as an “enemy combatant.”[1] Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and subsequently shipped between various military bases, passing through Guantanamo before ultimately landing indefinitely at a South Caroline naval brig.[2] In June of 2002, Hamdi’s father filed a habeas petition on his behalf, alleging that “Hamdi’s detention . . . without charges, access to an impartial tribunal, or assistance of counsel ‘violated and continue[s] to violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”[3]
In a plurality opinion, Justice O’Connor first addressed “whether the Executive has the authority to detain citizens who qualify as enemy combatants.”[4] Justice O’Connor answered that Congress had authorized Hamdi’s detention through the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).[5] The AUMF thus satisfied a 1971 congressional Act, which demands that “[n]o citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained except pursuant to an Act of Congress.”[6] The plurality read the AUMF’s grant of “all necessary and appropriate force” as leaving “no doubt” that enemy combatants can be detained “for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured.”[7] In closing this piece of the opinion, Justice O’Connor cited the 1942 case Ex parte Quirin in holding that citizenship was no barrier to the Executive’s ability to detain an individual as an “enemy combatant.”[8]
Following this initial holding, the plurality next addressed the level of process that must constitutionally be afforded a citizen-detainee contesting their “enemy combatant” designation.[9] While both parties agreed that the federal habeas statute conferred jurisdiction upon the federal courts to hear Hamdi’s habeas petition, there was great disagreement concerning the actual procedures owed to a detainee in Hamdi’s position.[10]
Justice O’Connor opened this discussion by recognizing that the federal habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. 2241, and its companion provisions provided a basic outline of the procedures afforded a prisoner in habeas review.[11] However, Justice O’Connor concluded that to determine the proper process in any given situation, the well-known Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), balancing test is the proper analysis to determine adequate due process.[12] Under Mathews, “the process due in any given instance is determined by weighing ‘the private interest that will be affected by the official action’ against the Government’s asserted interest . . . and the burdens Government would face in providing greater process.”[13] In applying the Mathews test, Justice O’Connor highlighted the weighty competing interests underlying this case before ultimately stating the essential procedural elements that were due. These elements amounted to the mandate that a citizen-detainee “seeking to challenge his classification as an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis of his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government’s factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker.”[14]
Alongside this determination, Justice O’Connor acknowledged that the potential burden such proceedings could place on the Executive may necessitate a level of malleability concerning the standards for habeas review.[15] For instance, Justice O’Connor proposed the reduction of certain ordinary rules of evidence and that “an impartial, ‘appropriately authorized’ military tribunal might meet the announced standards.”[16]
In the end, Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion did not provide a clear and bright line formula regarding the procedures due in a habeas proceeding. Still, the opinion is significant for affirming the president’s authority to designate American citizens as “enemy combatants” and for the reciprocal constitutional right of American citizens imprisoned on U.S. soil to seek habeas review.
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[1] Brian D. Fahy, Given an Inch, the Detainee Effort to Take a Mile: The Detainee Legislation and the Dangers of the “Litigation Weapon in Unrestrained Enemy Hands,” 36 Pepp. L. Rev. 129, 152 (2008).
[2] Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 510 (2004). See Fahy, supra note 1, at 152; Robert J. Pushaw, Creating Legal Rights for Suspected Terrorists: Is the Court Being Courageous or Politically Pragmatic? 84 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1975, 2000 (2009).
[3] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 511.
[4] Id. at 516.
[5] Id.
[6] 18 U.S.C. 4001(a).
[7] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 518. See Robert J. Pushaw, The ‘Enemy Combatant’ Cases in Historical Context: The Inevitability of Pragmatic Judicial Review, 82 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1006, 1048 (2007)
[8] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 519. See Pushaw, supra note 8, at 1048.
[9] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 524.
[10] Id. at 525; Marc D. Falkoff, Back to Basics: Habeas Corpus Procedures and Long-Term Executive Detention, 86 Denv. U. L. Rev. 961, 993 (2009)
[11] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 525.
[12] Id. at 528-29; Falkoff, supra note 10, at 994.
[13] Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 529.
[14] Id. at 533.
[15] Id. at 533-538.
[16] Id. at 538. See Pushaw, supra note 8, at 1049.