Judicial Activity Concerning Enemy Combatant Detainees: Major Court Rulings
Supreme Court granted certiorari and vacated the appellate court's decisions, remanding for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene. Upon remand, the D.C. Circuit reinstated without explanation its decisions, presumably because it did not find the Boumediene ruling to conflict with its decisions in these cases.
al-Marri v. Spagone, 129 S.Ct. 1545 (2009)
In December 2008, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review an en banc ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding petitioner al-Marri, a lawful alien resident who had been arrested in the United States and thereafter detained as an enemy combatant. At the time, the Court's decision to review the Fourth Circuit's ruling was thought to have potentially set the stage for a definitive pronouncement regarding the President's authority to militarily detain terrorist suspects apprehended away from the Afghan battlefield. However, before the Court could consider the merits of the case, the government requested that the Court authorize al-Marri's release from military custody and transfer to civilian authorities to face criminal charges. The Court granted the government's request, vacated the appellate court's earlier judgment, and transferred the case back to the lower court with orders to dismiss it as moot. (See below for discussion of appellate court ruling).
Kiyemba v. Obama, 130 S.Ct. 1235 (2010)
In October 2009, the Supreme Court agreed to review a ruling by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Kiyemba v. Obama, discussed infra. The Kiyemba case involved several Guantanamo detainees who, despite no longer being considered enemy combatants and been cleared for release, had not been transferred from Guantanamo on account of the government being unable to effectuate their release to a foreign country. The Kiyemba petitioners sought reversal of a D.C. Circuit ruling finding that a federal habeas court lacked the authority to compel the Executive to release the detainees into the United States. Following the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari, however, several Kiyemba petitioners were resettled in foreign countries, and the United States was able to find countries willing to settle the remaining petitioners, although five petitioners rejected these countries' offers for resettlement. On March 1, 2010, the Supreme Court vacated the appellate court's opinion and remanded the case in light of these developments. Because the Supreme Court had granted certiorari on the understanding that no remedy was available for the petitioners other than release into the United States, it returned the case to the D.C. Circuit to review the ramifications of the new circumstances. Litigation in Kiyemba remains ongoing.
Notable Circuit Court Rulings
The following section discusses major rulings made at the appellate court level regarding persons designated as enemy combatants that involve matters of continuing relevance to U.S. detention policy. It does not discuss those rulings that were subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court on the merits.
Congressional Research Service7
