1/02/04
HABEAS
CORPUS, THE BIBLE, AND JOSE
PADILLA
All
human rights and responsibilities derive from God, who is the ultimate giver of
all absolute rights and responsibilities, since He alone is our Creator and
Redeemer. God has revealed these
rights and responsibilities to men in His Word, the Bible. Among the rights and responsibilities found
there, is the right not to be punished for an alleged crime without due process
of law. This is why we read, for
example, that “One
witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in
any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of
three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” Consequently, it is unjust for a man to be imprisoned indefinitely without knowing the
charges against him and without the weighing of the evidence for the charges by
a judge.
Recognizing
these rights given by God, English common law has provided writs of habeas
corpus. It is a writ having for its
object to bring a party before a court or judge; especially, one to inquire
into the cause of a person's imprisonment or detention by another, with the
view to protect the right to personal liberty; also, one to bring a prisoner
into court to testify in a pending trial.
By
not recognizing the authority of God and His Word in its Constitution and in
its modern judicial decisions, Americans have left themselves subject to the
whims of men. The on-going case of Jose
Padilla illustrates how this dangerous course may play out, if the Bush
Administration has its way.
Here
is how the Cato Institute has explained this case at http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-21-03.html
:
“August 21, 2003
Jose Padilla: No Charges and No Trial, Just Jail
by Robert A. Levy
Robert A. Levy is
senior fellow in constitutional
studies at the Cato Institute.
Jose Padilla is the U.S. citizen who supposedly plotted to detonate a
"dirty bomb." Since his capture -- not on the battlefields of
Afghanistan or Iraq, but at Chicago's O'Hare Airport -- he has not been charged
with any crime. Yet, for more than a year, Padilla has been held incommunicado
in a South Carolina military brig.
Padilla's
indefinite detention, without access to an attorney, has civil libertarians up
in arms. That's why the Cato Institute, joined by five ideologically diverse
public policy organizations -- the Center for National Security Studies, the
Constitution Project, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, People for the
American Way, and the Rutherford Institute -- filed a friend-of-the-court brief
in Padilla v. Rumsfeld, now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit in New York.
Consider
this specious logic, endorsed by the Bush administration: Under the Sixth
Amendment, the right to counsel does not apply until charges are filed. The
government has not charged Padilla. Ordinarily, U.S. citizens cannot be
detained without charge. But the administration has avoided that technicality
by designating Padilla as an "enemy combatant," then proclaiming that
the court may not second-guess his designation.
Essentially,
on orders of the executive branch, anyone could wind up imprisoned by the
military with no way to assert his innocence. That frightening prospect was
echoed by J. Harvie Wilkinson, the respected and steadfastly conservative chief
judge of the Fourth Circuit. In a case involving another U.S. citizen, Yaser
Hamdi, Wilkinson warned, "With no meaningful judicial review, any American
citizen alleged to be an enemy combatant could be detained indefinitely without
charges or counsel." Judge Wilkinson upheld Hamdi's detention but
pointedly noted that Hamdi's battlefield capture was like "apples and
oranges" compared to Padilla's arrest in Chicago. "We aren't placing
our imprimatur upon a new day of executive detentions," Wilkinson
cautioned.
An unambiguous federal statute and the U.S. Constitution both prohibit the executive branch from doing to Padilla what it is now doing. More than three decades ago, Congress passed Title 18, section 4001(a) of the U.S. Code. It states, "No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress." Today, we have not had from Congress any statute that authorizes Padilla's detention…”
The
case came before the Second Court of Appeals.
Reuters reported the results as follows:
“U.S. to
Seek Stay of Court Ruling on Padilla
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House
said on Thursday it would seek a stay of a court ruling that ordered the
release of an American being held by the military as an "enemy
combatant." The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling,
said it was illegal for the government to hold Jose Padilla in military custody
and said he should be released within 30 days. The court said that the
government can transfer Padilla to a civilian authority. "We believe the Second Circuit ruling is troubling and
flawed. The president has directed the Justice Department to seek a stay and
further judicial review," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told a
news briefing…”