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Title: Will the Supreme Court Rescue John Ashcroft Again?
Source:
Politics Daily
URL Source: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/1 ... rt-rescue-john-ashcroft-again/
Published: Oct 19, 2010
Author: Andrew Cohen
Post Date: 2010-10-21 12:14:00 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 1794
Comments: 2
The United States Supreme Court Monday signaled its intent to again rescue former Attorney General John Ashcroft from a civil trial over whether he abused his leading role in the enforcement of Bush-era detention policies toward terror suspects. For the second time in three terms, the justices have accepted a case designed to explore the width and depth of the legal immunity shield for public officials, like Ashcroft, who are sued for money damages based upon their conduct in office.
Just 16 months ago, in June 2009, in a case styled Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the justices blocked from trial a civil lawsuit against Ashcroft, FBI director Robert Mueller, and other public officials brought by Jawaid Iqbal, a Pakistani man who was detained in an immigration sweep in New York shortly after the terror attacks there. The Court split 5-4 along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, writing the majority opinion. Iqbal's claim couldn't pierce Ashcroft's governmental immunity because the complaint was too vague and conclusory, Justice Kennedy wrote, and it did not overcome the presumption that public officials act in good faith. He wrote: 
The Court sent the matter back to the lower courts to figure out whether Iqbal deserved a chance to amend his complaint in order to be more specific. The case was settled last fall. Now, just a few months later, at the request of the Obama administration as well as Ashcroft himself, the justices have accepted for argument Ashcroft v. al-Kidd -- another high-profile challenge involving Ashcroft as a civil defendant.
This lawsuit was brought by an American Muslim, Abdullah al-Kidd (formerly known as Lavoni Kidd, Kansas-born), who alleges that federal agents arrested him at Dulles International Airport in 2003 and then unlawfully detained him under the broad federal "material witness" statute. al-Kidd alleges that he was strip searched and shackled for two weeks. Turns out, as David Savage reports in the Los Angeles Times, "an FBI agent wrongly told a magistrate that Kidd had bought a one-way first-class ticket [back from Saudi Arabia]."
al-Kidd was never charged with a crime and never called as a witness in the case for which he purportedly had been held. So, like Iqbal, he sued Ashcroft and other public officials, asserting that his constitutional rights had been intentionally denied. The judge in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd ruled that al-Kidd's case could proceed toward trial despite the claims by Ashcroft and Company that they were entitled to immunity for their conduct at the time. al-Kidd alleged that Ashcroft "knew or reasonably should have known of the unlawful, excessive, and punitive manner in which the federal material witness statute was being used, and that such manner `would also foreseeably subject' detainees `to unreasonable and unlawful use of force, to unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and to punishment without due process.' "
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with al-Kidd. The government's overzealous use of material witness warrants in the wake of 9/11, the Court ruled, "was repugnant to the Constitution." In a 2-1 vote, the federal appeals panel held that "when a prosecutor [Ashcroft] seeks a material witness warrant in order to investigate or preemptively detain a suspect, rather than to secure his testimony at another's trial, the prosecutor is entitled at most to qualified, rather than absolute, immunity." The 9th Circuit also addressed -- and distinguished -- the Supreme Court's ruling in Iqbal. The panel's majority wrote:
Are those and other distinctions between the Iqbal and al-Kidd cases relevant and material? Are the allegations specific enough to generate a different result? Will they change Justice Kennedy's mind? It's possible but I don't think so. I don't think the Court would have accepted the review if it wanted to endorse the 9th Circuit's view and allow former executive branch officials to face trial -- even in the stark circumstances presented by al-Kidd and his lawyers. Ultimately, these two cases, taken together, will likely be called the Ashcroft Cases. It is even more likely that they will stand for the proposition that this Supreme Court deemed it virtually impossible to successfully sue law enforcement officials in a time of terror.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Its a bullshit lawsuit.
Obama's first all-by-his-lonesome budget, btw, calls for a $1.17 trillion deficit.
Is that of liberal assholes and Islamofacist ass-kissers.
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
the 9th Circuit's view
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