WASHINGTON - The Abu Ghraib prison abuse furor may have a significant impact on one highly select audience with power over the president’s anti-terrorism effort: the nine justices of the Supreme Court. The court is now deliberating in the cases of al-Qaida suspects held at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and two American citizens, Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, held in the United States as enemy combatants.
Decisions are expected in those historic cases before the court ends its term in June. At issue: whether Padilla, Hamdi, and the Guantanamo detainees should be granted hearings to challenge their detention. Legal experts say that given the Abu Ghraib revelations, the justices may be less inclined to rule in favor of the Bush administration.
“It is always difficult to know how judges are affected by events. But judges, even Supreme Court justices, do not live outside the realities of the world around them,” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, who wrote a friend-of-the court brief opposing the Bush administration in the Guantanamo case.
“If the recent events in Iraq have any impact on the justices, it will likely be to make them less confident about giving broad deference to the executive on such matters,” Stone said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4947445/
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