Rumsfeld v. Padilla

Rumsfeld v. Padilla is a Supreme Court of the United States decision on a technical challenge regarding the extrajudicial detention of Jose Padilla. The Court reversed the decision of the United State Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on the basis that the Second Circuit had no jurisdiction. The SCOTUS did not address the question of the legality of the military detention. That appellate court had reversed a lower court that held that the President has authority, as Commander in Chief, to detain even citizens, captured on U.S. soil, as enemy combatants. The appeals court reversed that decision, stating the President lacks authority to detain Padilla militarily.

Jose Padilla, a United States citizen, had been arrested, as a material witness, as part of the investigation of the 9-11 attacks. The warrant had been issued by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He appealed the warrant, but, while the appeal was pending, President George W. Bush determined Padilla was an enemy combatant, and ordered he be put under military jurisdiction. Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, had him moved to a U.S. Navy jail in Charleston, SC, where he has been held.

His counsel then filed a habeas corpus petition in the Court for the Soithern District, claiming the detention was unconstitutional, and naming, as respondents, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and CDR Melanie Marr (U.S. Navy), the brig’s commander. Arguing to dismiss, the government claimed Marr, Padilla's actual custodian, was the only possible respondent, but Marr, in South Carolina, was outside the New York court's jurisdiction. This argument was rejected by the Second Circuit, because Rumsfeld was personally involved in the case.

The Second Circuit, however, accepted the Government’s contention that "the President has authority as Commander in Chief to detain as enemy combatants citizens captured on American soil during a time of war. The Second Circuit agreed that the Secretary was a proper respondent and that the Southern District had jurisdiction over the Secretary under New York’s long-arm statute."

It reversed, however, deciding that the President's authority did not apply in Padilla's specific case.