I have now read through Al Maqaleh v. Gates and Hamidullah v. Obama, which are both brief reads. I don't have a great deal to say about them, except that they well represent the end of the line for the p...

On we march to AE22, the defense’s motion to grant public access to commission-designated broadcast sites.  That topic belongs to James Harrington, a member of Ramzi Binalshibh’s team.  Most people canno...

In AE10, the defense has asked for verbatim transcriptions of the Rule 802 conferences---which, as things stand now, are not recorded in that fashion.  On behalf of Walid Bin Attash, Cheryl Bormann comes...

Wells already posted U.S. District Judge John D. Bates's opinion dismissing Maqaeleh. Judge Bates also dismissed the related case of Hamidullah. I'm reading them both now and will have thoughts later tod...

Judge John Bates has granted the government's motion to dismiss in Al-Maqaleh et al v. Gates---in which detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan had petitioned for writs of habeas corpus.

Jonathan Witmer-Rich of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law writes in with these comments on Hamdan II: Reflecting on Hamdan II, I wonder if the court really responded to the government’s opening argum...

Prosecutor Clay Trivett opens his argument regarding AE36 with a list.  On it are Presidents Obama and Bush, Joe Biden and Senator Graham.  If the defense got what they wanted, Trivett says, all of these...

Steve, Ben, Jack, and Bobby have already posted some excellent thoughts on the DC Circuit's decision in Hamdan II.  I agree with many of them.

Judge Pohl’s at the bench.  It seems the morning will be a court-and-counsel only affair: none of the five accused have materialized.  That means a quick appearance by Robert Swann; some testimony, from ...

I was going to post this morning about my bewilderment at President Obama's comments last night about "legal architecture" for the War on Terror, but as Jack noted, Josh Gerstein has already done so. And...

The President had this to say about issues of interest to readers of the blog: Obama: There are some things that we haven't gotten done.  I still want to close Guantanamo.  We haven’t been able to get th...

Rain falls outside our little CCTV facility here at Fort Meade, as we come to the week's fifth and final day of hearings in the 9/11 case.  We expect the gavel bang at 9 p.m., and will start coverage then.

I saw the movie Argo last weekend. It's an excellent film, and as readers likely know already, its subject is a real covert action. After seeing it, I became curious about how accurate a portrayal of the...

Bugs are Cheryl Bormann’s problem, along with mold and mildew---though perhaps, it seems, less of a problem than before.  She reports that the parties have settled their dispute about sanitary conditions...

James Connell III, lawyer for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, has our biggest ticket item for the day: he wants a declaration regarding the Constitution’s application to military commission proceedings at Guantanamo...

The Washington Post reports : The Center for Constitutional Rights, a private group which has been deeply involved in detainee issues, praised Tuesday’s decision but said it does not go far enough.

The screen comes alive with James Connell III---who responds to the court’s pending inquiry, regarding material that isn’t subject to the government’s information privilege but that still comes within th...

Our fourth day commences, as expected, with presence matters. Prosecutor Robert Swann discharges what appears to be his recurring duty: establishing that the day’s two no-shows, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and R...