Padilla shuffle, continued.

"The Supreme Court agreed today to allow for the transfer of" Jose Padilla from a military brig to civilian custody to stand trial on terrorism charges, giving the Bush administration a victory in one round of the prolonged political and legal wrangling over Mr. Padilla's status under the law," reported the New York Times on January 4.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen, had been held in a South Carolina military brig for more than three years alter being designated an "enemy combatant" by President Bush. Attorneys acting on Padilla's behalf had actually requested that his detention continue in order to facilitate a legal challenge to the Bush administration's unsupportable claim that the president has the authority to order the indefinite detention of any U.S. citizen he designates an "enemy combatant."

As we reported earlier (see "The Padilla Shuffle" in our December 26, 2005 issue), President Bush, confronting a Supreme Court challenge he would most likely lose, ordered that Padilla be released from military custody and tried in the federal court system. This about-face came years after Padilla had been accused of participating in a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty" bomb. The president and his subordinates thwarted Padilla's efforts to be tried in court because, they insisted, Padilla was simply too dangerous to deal with through the criminal justice system. That assessment changed abruptly, and without explanation, when the administration learned that the president's decision would be reviewed by the High Court.

In late December, Judge J. Michael Luttig of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a Republican appointee briefly considered by President Bush for a Supreme Court post, accused the administration of attempting to dodge judicial review of its claims. Although the Fourth Circuit had approved of Padilla's detention last September, Judge Luttig blasted the administration for introducing a new set of facts in its effort to persuade a Miami grand jury to indict him on previously unmentioned terrorism-related charges.

The Bush administration, seeking to vindicate its doctrine of unlimited executive power, complained that Judge Luttig's ruling "defies both law and logic," and was "an unwarranted attack on the exercise of executive discretion." The Supreme Court, in ordering the transfer, indicated that it would examine the broader issues raised by Padilla's detention "in due course."