D.C. Circuit Fleshes Out Standards For Detaining, Trying Enemy Combatants

A Yemeni citizen held at Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba, as an enemy combatant was lawfully detained and accorded all process due him in his habeas corpus proceeding, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held Jan. 5 (Al-Bihani v. Obama).

“[W]e aim to narrow the legal uncertainty that clouds military detention,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown said, asserting that the U.S. Supreme Court has “consciously [left] the contours of the substantive and procedural law of detention open for lower courts to shape in a common law fashion.”

The detainee’s admissions and other evidence showed that ...