Court Clears Way for Criminal Trial in Padilla Case

Posted on January 5, 2006

WASHINGTON — In a small victory for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for erstwhile “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla to be released from a military brig and moved to a jail in Miami where he faces a criminal trial.

It was the latest turn in the saga of the Bronx-born New York Muslim who was once accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.” The court’s brief and unanimous order ends a spat with the conservative U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., which, for reasons of its own, had blocked the transfer of Padilla to the criminal court.

Wednesday’s order allows the government to prosecute Padilla on scaled-down charges of training with terrorists. It also probably spares the administration from a defeat before the Supreme Court on whether the president can imprison Americans as “enemy combatants.”

The ACLU will be disappointed with this move. They were hoping to go after the President’s powers to imprison traitors.

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