Thursday, August 20, 2009

Setback for US on Detention Claims

SCOTUSblog writes Setback for U.S. on detention claims. It seems a federal judge ruled the Pentagon can't use hearsay at trial (like you normally can't).

"The new development is another indication of how a dozen federal judges in Washington are shaping the law of detention, little by little, with only general guidance from the Supreme Court.  The net effect has been to hold the government to more demanding legal standards than it wanted, standards that it has vigorously resisted.

While the specific dispute centers on the arcane issue of what kinds of statements, declarations or other verbal descriptions of detainee activity can be admitted in habeas cases in federal court, there is a real practical dimension to it.  It puts the onus on Justice Department lawyers to show the material is convincing, and spares detainee lawyers the primary task of showing the contrary."

"He warned that he would not accept mere “conclusoary assertions from government officials” that it would be too difficult for them to come up with harder evidence. Officials with direct access to government evidence must give sworn statements about how hard it would be to come up with alternatives to hearsay, he added. If hearsay is all the evidence that the government has about a given detainee, Walton went on, that does not necessarily mean he will accept it. "

No comments: