Enemy Combatant Detainees
Overview of Recent Supreme Court Action
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), a divided Supreme Court declared that “a state of war is not a blank check for the president” and ruled that persons deemed “enemy combatants” have the right to challenge their detention before a judge or other “neutral decisionmaker.” The Court did not decide whether the same right applies to aliens held as enemy combatants outside of the United States, but held in Rasul v. Bush (2004) that Federal courts have jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions by or on behalf of such detainees. The latter decision reversed the holding of the Court of Appeals for…
