The appeals court did rule that Padilla could be detained indefinitely as an enemy combatant, which is what I said:
from the case, Padilla v. Hanft, No. 05-6396 (4th Cir. Sept. 9, 2005)
"Because, like Hamdi, Padilla is an enemy combatant, and because his detention is no less necessary than was Hamdi’s in order to prevent his return to the battlefield, the President is authorized by the AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution) to detain Padilla as a fundamental incident to the conduct of war".
The opinion does in fact state that the Court thinks that in view of the facts it believes to have been established in the record, that this is a good idea -- Padilla's detention is militarily necessary, or he will escape to wage war on the U.S. again.
However a Court is virtually never called on to comment on whether it thinks a law or an outcome is a good idea. Whether a law is a good idea, as opposed to constitutionally defensible, is entirely a matter for the legislature. (As Holmes put imn the context of discussing the Sherman antitrust act, which he thought a damn fool notion, but fully within the powers of Congress to pass.)
Whether an outcome is happy is irrelevant, what matters is the how the law applies to the facts. Occasionally one does get an acknowledgement that some outcomes are approved of my the Court, but this is obiter dicta.
The grounds that you correctly say are the ones the Court used, namely that there is law authorizing Padilla's detention given the terms of the law and their application to the case, are precisely the kind of grounds that a court should use. However, this law is obscene and the oitcome an abomination. Moreover the opinion is a joke, given the cavalier way it treats an issue that one thought had been decided 80 years ago by Magna Carta, namely that the sovereign cannot detain a citizen indefinitely without charging him and presenting probable cause for his arrest to a competent tribunal.
The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the policy in question. That does not mean the issue was not raised. A Court can choose its own grounds for va decision, and ignore argument that it chooses for whatever reason not to address. For example, in the Bakke case, Justice Stevens wanted to decide the case solely on statutory grounds and not address the constitutional ones. (The leading opinion in that case, Powell's, was of course a constitutional one).
Maybe you objected to my litany of constitutional objections in my own own commentary, but that was not intended as a summary of the Court's opinion, but an my interpretation of the effective meaning of the result.
Charles thinks the Court should have affirmed on constitutional grounds whether argued or not. I would not disagree. But this is the Fourth Circuit, let's get real.
The author of the panel's opinion, J. Michael Luttig, is in line for an open S,Ct seat.
jks
--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> > The 4th Circuit ruled that the US govt can keep
> Jose
> > Padilla, an American citizen it alleges to have
> been
> > involved in terrorist activity, in jail
> indefinitely.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, but since this was posted by one,
> I'm curious about
> what the lbo-talk legal contingent thinks of this
> ruling. From what I
> read, the above summary is not at all correct; what
> they ruled was that
> it was lawful to do, because Congress passed a law
> supporting this kind
> of behavior. They didn't seem to make any kind of
> statement about
> whether they thought it was a good idea or not: they
> just said, in plain
> language I might add, that this is exactly covered
> by a law.
>
> They seemed to liken it to someone asking whether it
> was okay to give
> tickets for speeding, and well, yes, it's against
> the law to speed, so
> sure!
>
> Discuss.
>
> ___________________________________
>
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