Padilla V Hanft Case Brief

Padilla V Hanft Case Brief Padilla v Hanft 423 F.3d. 386 (4th Cir.2005) In the understandable, albeit alarmist wake after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers, a United States citizen named Jose Padilla was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare International Airport. Federal Bureau of Investigation officers executed a material witness arrest warrant against him and he was subsequently spirited away to jail in New York.

Without being charged with any particular crime as United States' citizens are required to be under their due process of law constitutional rights, Padilla was nonetheless held indefinitely as a material witness into the investigation of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (UCLA, 2006). In June of 2002, then President George W. Bush issued a presidential order defining Padilla as an "enemy combatant," which effectively stripped away his civil rights as an American citizen.

Padilla's custody was subsequently transferred to the Department of Defense, which quickly absconded Padilla to a high security military brig in South Carolina. His appointed counsel had not been given prior notice, and immediately filed a writ of habeas corpus. Yet the United States government continued to hold Padilla for years with no formal charges filed against him, nor even allowing his attorney to make regular personal visits. Not surprisingly, the case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court. Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S.

426 (2004), sought habeas corpus relief against then-Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld. Curiously, the High Court held Padilla's writ of habeas corpus was filed in the wrong court. The highest Court in the land instead ruled the habeas petition should have been properly filed with the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina since technically Padilla was not being held as a civilian but rather in a military brig (430).

Amazingly, two years later, Padilla's counsel filed a new writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court of South Carolina, which ultimately ruled Padilla's detention was not authorized by Congress nor the Constitution of the United States of America and was therefore not legal. The federal government appealed this decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The American Civil Liberties Union (2006) filed an amicus brief supporting Padilla by arguing the indefinite detention violated Padilla's right to due process under the law as an American citizen.

Finally, in September of 2005, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, noting that the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution," upon which the President relied upon in his order that Padilla be detained by the military and upon which the government relied in support of the President's authority to detain Padilla, provided certain extraordinary wartime powers as follows: [T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons (p.391).

Padilla's counsel subsequently filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, which was again denied in April of 2006. Meantime, Padilla had been transferred to civilian custody, essentially rendering the petition for a writ of certiorari in the highest court in the land a moot point.

The question before the Court of Appeals was whether the President of the United States had the constitutional authority to detain a United States citizen who was allegedly associated with al Qaeda, a known terrorist organization that the United States was at war with. The Judge who ultimately penned the Court of Appeals' opinion, Luttig, was joined by Judges Michael and Traxler (2005) and wrote: The detention of petitioner being fully authorized by Act.