The Hamdan Oral Argument

JB

The two most interesting features of the Hamdan oral argument were, first, that despite the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the Justices seemed to downplay the idea that they lacked jurisdiction to decide anything. Justice Souter in particular tried to throw cold water on the idea that Congress had suspended the writ of habeas corpus, even though that seems to be precisely what Congress had in mind in passing the Detainee Treatment Act. It sought to deny the extension of statutory habeas to noncitizens held outside the United States. What was quite unclear is whether the Justices were assuming that Eisentrager was no longer good law, or that to eliminate the statutory right of habeas the Court found in Rasul was tantamount to suspending the writ itself.

Second, aside from comments by Justice Scalia, the Justices who spoke seemed to assume that the President did indeed have to comply with Geneva Conventions. The reason, as I understand it, is that if that Congress has authorized military tribunals because such tribunals are consistent with the laws of war, then the Geneva Conventions are part of the laws of war, or, in the alternative, they are strong evidence of what the laws of war require. Hence, by the end of the oral argument it seemed that the Court was likely to hold (contrary to the D.C. Circuit decision) that the Geneva Conventions did matter, and it was irrelevant whether or not they were self-executing.

If the Geneva Conventions apply as part of the laws of war, and the September 18, 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) only permits the President to act according to the laws of war, then this places important limits what the President may do, unless the Court holds that the President has inherent authority that goes beyond the September 18, 2001 AUMF. My guess is that a majority of the Court will try to avoid saying anything about the latter question. Instead, the Justices seem to be doing what they did in Hamdi, namely, construing the scope of Congressional authorization as a limit on what the President can do without reaching the question of unilateral executive authority.

Put another way, in Hamdi (and apparently in this case as well) the Court construes an agreement between the President and Congress, and then defers to the agreement it has constructed. Since the Court interprets the AUMF as allowing the President to do what is consistent with the laws of war, that means that the military tribunals must be consistent with the laws of war and the President may only try individuals in such tribunals for violations of the laws of war.

One might well ask why a Republican-appointed Justice like Kennedy (or in Hamdi, Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist) would sign on so readily to significant limits on Presidential power. The answer is that maximizing presidential power in the War on Terror was not the reason why Reagan and Bush I chose their nominees. As a result these nominees have split on this issue, with only Thomas making the strongest arguments for presidential power in Hamdi (In this case, he may be joined by Scalia, although it is worth remembering that Scalia's opinion in Hamdi was not at all favorable to claims of executive power.). George W. Bush, by contrast, did hope to use his Supreme Court appointments to maximize executive power. Therefore we can expect that Justice Samuel Alito will support the Administration's position, as one suspects, would Chief Justice Roberts. Ironically, Roberts recused himself from this case precisely because shortly before being nominated, he had demonstrated his pro-executive views by joining the strongly pro-executive decision in the D.C. Circuit below.

The moral of the story is that when Justices are appointed by a previous President, they are often appointed for reasons that may have little to do with the constitutional issues that arise later on. This makes what they do in those later cases far less predictable.