Posted on March 27, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/rachel/34107/
Starting this week, the Supreme Court is supposed to be objectively and impartially hearing arguments in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, on the legality of the U.S.'s military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees. These detainees, who have been held for years without charges or access to lawyers, are not given access to full representation and jury trials.
One Justice, Antonin Scalia, has apparently already made up his mind about the detainees. In an unpublicized talk to a Swiss audience, documented by Newsweek, Scalia called their claims "crazy" and said detainees have no rights either under the U.S. Constitution or under international law.
Although only 5 percent of the Guantnamo detainees were captured by U.S. forces, for Scalia, this time it's personal:
If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy.
If Scalia doesn't recuse himself, his vote will be considered suspect. Much comfort that will give Hamdan and the other detainees who believed in U.S. justice enough to hope for a fair hearing.
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