> When the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida vote count because Gore
> was going to win and gave nonsensical, illogical reasons for doing it,
> The Five asserted they were Republicans first and Justices second. If
> Bush had been increasing his lead over Gore instead of losing ground,
> the court would have allowed ALL of the votes to be counted, and
> gushed, gushed, gushed about democracy-means-counting-votes; you can
> bet your sweet legal ass on that.
>
>
> OBL's chauffeur sues the President of the United States ... AND WINS!

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling ends years of work for Eli lawyers
> http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32956
>
> BY ANDREW MANGINO
> Staff Reporter
>
> As U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took his seat at the
> bench on Thursday morning--in the closing hour of the court's term and
> minutes before announcing his ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld--Danielle
> Tarantolo LAW '06 realized she was "finally at the end of the road" of
> a journey that had begun years and courtrooms ago.
>
> "This is what we had been anticipating since the very first day," she
> said, the "we" referring to the team of more than a dozen Yale Law
> School students who had worked under the leadership of Georgetown law
> professor Neal Katyal LAW '95 and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, and
> alongside other law professors, students and firms throughout the
> country, to represent Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden's former
> driver. "It was surreal."
>
> Around 10:15 a.m., Stevens began to describe his 73-page opinion. The
> government's previous victory in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he
> said, was overturned. The high court had found jurisdiction to reach
> the merits of Hamdan's argument. And in doing so, Stevens announced,
> five justices found that President George W. Bush '68 overstepped his
> authority. Military commissions were constructed illegally, without the
> required consent of Congress. The Geneva Convention had been violated;
> international treaties were still enforceable in U.S. courts.
>
> As Stevens read on, it suddenly became clear to Tarantolo and other
> members of Hamdan's defense team in attendance that an imprisoned
> Yemeni national had, with their help, sued the president of the United
> States in the nation's highest court and--won.
>
> "We all had ear-to-ear grins plastered to our faces, making exclamatory
> facial expressions every time [Stevens] said something we recognized
> from our briefs," Tarantolo said after the ruling. "Even when we had
> permitted ourselves to dream big about what result we might get, many
> of us--myself included--had not dared to hope for some of the arguments
> that Stevens was making. To hear a Supreme Court justice say the
> arguments you believe to be true suddenly makes them real and
> legitimate."
>
> Before long, the news spread to other Yale students and alums involved
> in the case who were not in Washington, D.C., at the time. Steve Wu LAW
> '05 said he was "astonished" at the virtual unanimity among the five
> majority justices in rejecting nearly every argument posed by the Bush
> Administration.
>
> "I thought it was assumed that the court would split on some of those
> claims," Wu said. "I don't think anybody expected this kind of victory
> of Hamdan."
>
> Wu said the decision was gratifying, especially since work on the case
> was not always easy. Setbacks included a loss on the federal appellate
> level and Congress' passage of the potentially stifling Detainee
> Treatment Act. Some days, he said, were "kind of a hard slog to go
> through."
>
> "There were definitely times you were working late before or after
> doing all the work and you sort of start wondering why you're butting
> your head against the wall," Wu said. "It's very rewarding to feel that
> you can make some difference--that what you wrote at 2 a.m. one night
> had some influence on that outcome."
>
> In his opinion, Stevens wrote that the authority to employ some
> variation of military tribunals for trying detainees, "if it exists,
> can derive only from the powers granted jointly to the President and
> Congress in time of war."
>
> He concluded that lack of express congressional authorization, military
> law precedent, and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention combined
> to form a "Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction."
>
> Throughout more than 65 footnotes, which made for some of the more
> flavorful parts of Stevens' opinion, he addressed many of the arguments
> made by dissenters and the government. He discussed the trial following
> the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the precise start date of the war
> on terror, and the 1952 attempt by President Harry Truman to seize
> steel mills during the Korean War.
>
> But dissenter Clarence Thomas LAW '74, who took the unusual step of
> reading parts of his nearly 50-page opinion from the bench, argued for
> deference to the executive branch. Unlike dissenter Samuel Alito LAW
> '75, who primarily said the court had overstepped its jurisdiction and
> then unnecessarily struck a "regularly," albeit "differently,"
> constructed court, Thomas's language was lofty and biting. He warned
> that the court's ruling could compromise national security.
>
> "The President's findings about the nature of the present conflict with
> respect to members of al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan represents a
> core exercise of his commander-in-chief authority that this Court is
> bound to respect," Thomas wrote.
>
> Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that in addition to the narrow
> result of invalidating the military commissions, the Hamdan ruling
> sends three broad messages.
>
> "To the world at large, it says the executive branch response is not
> the only response to these crises. To human rights and NGOs and
> universities and students it sends a messages that if government action
> strikes you as excessive, it pays up to stand up and challenge it
> because your view may turn out to be more consistent with the rule of
> law," Koh said. "To the executive branch, instead of claiming that
> there is a new paradigm to which the old laws don't apply, [it says]
> you should in all circumstances look first to existing legal rules to
> see whether you can respond in a way that's consistent with our legal
> practices and traditions."
>
> Koh said the ruling also demonstrates that Yale Law School "stands up
> for the rule of law when it's threatened."
>
> The case was unusual for the high involvement of Yalies on both sides
> of the dispute. Two of the three dissenters--Thomas and Alito--are Yale
> grads. Each wrote an opinion supporting the policies of Bush, another
> Yale alum. Hamdan's position was spearheaded largely by Yale graduates
> and students and championed Koh along with several other law school
> professors.
>
> In reaction to the ruling, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
> Arlen Specter LAW '56 introduced new legislation designed to govern
> future enemy combatant trials. John Yoo LAW '92 was the deputy
> assistant attorney general alleged to have devised the very military
> commissions in question.
>
> After sorting through the 185-page opinion, Tarantolo had a mix of
> emotions.
>
> "For me personally, having worked on the case for so long, I was both
> giddy with excitement and strangely nostalgic," she said. "But in the
> end, it was all worth it."
>
> Although the ruling was far-reaching, addressing numerous contentious
> legal questions, it stopped short of ordering a specific remedy.
>
> "The natural question that seems to come out of this decision is 'So
> what? What do we do with this?" said Ariel Lavinbuk LAW '07, who worked
> on the case. "Justice Breyer and Justice Kennedy [in concurring
> opinions] both really emphasize that there's many different things that
> the U.S. government could do, but that the president can't unilaterally
> make many of these decisions. É It's unfortunate that it needed to go
> this far in order to have a clear reminder about basic principles about
> our government."
>
> In a press conference call Thursday afternoon, a senior Bush
> administration official said the departments of Justice and Defense
> were attempting to determine the precise scope of the ruling, which he
> insisted was narrow.
>
> "Certainly the court's decision is limited to the case before it, and
> this case was a case about the military commission that had been
> convened against Mr. Hamdan," the official said. "As to the
> implications for the decision beyond that, that's something that we are
> studying and will be studying."
>
> As for Hamdan himself, Tarantolo said at least three possible scenarios
> may play out in light of the ruling. Hamdan could be tried in federal
> court, he could be brought in front of a court martial, or Congress
> could set up a new system of rules for governing trials of detainees.
>
> "The truth is, it's impossible to say what's next for Hamdan, since the
> ball is in the government's court," she said.
>
> Yale law professor Judith Resnik, who helped write an amicus brief on
> behalf of Hamdan, said she celebrated "the important holdings that
> there are no law-free zones in America and that the Constitution does
> not give the president a blank check to go unchecked.
>
> "The answer isn't just go close Guantanamo Bay, but to fix the
> processes by which Americans detain and try people alleged to be
> terrorists," Resnik said. "Conditions of that camp need to be radically
> reformed immediately."
>
> Koh said the court's plurality holding in favor of applying Common
> Article 3 of the Geneva Convention--which implores all detainees to be
> treated humanely--might have major implications for other tactics
> employed by the Bush administration in the war on terror. One such
> tactic is the NSA eavesdropping program, which Koh testified against
> before Congress in February.
>
> "The job of Yale professors and students and alumni committed to the
> rule of law is to make sure that the spirit of the opinion, that
> reflects the sprit of the Constitution, is constantly being reaffirmed
> as new crises arise," he said.
>
> But in Thursday's White House press briefing, press secretary Tony Snow
> said the two programs were like "apples and oranges."
>
> Cary Franklin '98 LAW '05, who also helped to construct briefs,
> disagreed.
>
> "I don't think they're going to be able to wiggle out from underneath
> the rule that this case set out," she said.
>
> Franklin said that although the ruling exceeded her expectations,
> nothing came as a shock.
>
> "I wouldn't say I was surprised, because professor Katyal just makes
> you very optimistic about things, because he's so passionate and
> tireless in the cause of justice that you just believe it's going to
> prevail," Franklin said.
>
> After the ruling, Katyal--perhaps reflecting on the hundreds of e-mail
> messages sent amongst his law students, the 2 a.m. epiphanies, and the
> many up-down moments he had already shared with his student-dominated
> team--only had words of thanks.
>
> "I am grateful to all of my students, who have worked hard and
> tirelessly on behalf of bringing justice to Guantanamo," Katyal said.