When judges become generals
With its decision in Boumediene the Supreme Court took a huge risk. What becomes of the judiciary’s institutional legitimacy if a court releases the next Osama bin Laden?
The judiciary is not competent to make judgments about who is or is not an enemy combatant or, more generally, a threat to the U.S. The imposition of the civilian criminal justice model on decisions regarding potentially hostile aliens raises a host of questions which the Court does not even attempt to answer in Boumediene.