Supreme Court ruling could free scores from Guantanamo
By Michael Doyle and Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's landmark Guantanamo Bay decision Thursday could free foreign prisoners while it inflames Capitol Hill.
Some consequences are immediate, for a case that's big legally, politically and militarily. Within hours of the court's decision in the combined cases known as Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, attorneys were preparing to demand hearings for detainees long held without charges.
These habeas corpus hearings before federal judges will force the Bush administration to reveal its evidence and expose publicly how the detainees have been treated. Some attorneys think that the administration simply will start releasing detainees to avoid the potentially embarrassing hearings altogether.
"Frankly, I don't think the government is going to want to continue to hold these detainees," predicted Matthew MacLean, co-counsel for a detainee named Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad al Odah.
Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, agreed that the court ruling would provide "additional incentive for the administration to repatriate as many people as possible."
more...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/40935.html