RICHMOND, Va.—A federal appeals panel has denied efforts by Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was detained for nearly four years as an “enemy combatant,” to reinstate a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officials.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled unanimously Monday that Padilla’s claims that he was unconstitutionally detained and tortured in the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., were without merit. Affirming a federal judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit, the judges determined that the U.S. Congress, not the court system, has jurisdiction over military detention cases, and that Congress hasn’t explicitly provided a path for civil damages.
The panel also cited the judiciary should defer to Congress and the executive branch in cases such as Padilla’s because litigation could potentially compromise military operations and national security issues.
“It takes little enough imagination to understand that a judicially devised damages action would expose past executive deliberations affecting sensitive matters of national security to the prospect of searching judicial scrutiny,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in Monday’s opinion. “It would affect future discussions as well, shadowed as they might be by the thought that those involved would face prolonged civil litigation and potential personal liability.”
Padilla contended that he was entitled to sue Rumsfeld, current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former brig commander Catherine T. Hanft and several other officials because the government deprived him of other ways to seek remedies for his treatment, even under military code. He also argued that Congress never specifically barred civilian U.S. citizens deemed “enemy combatants” from pursuing civil actions, as it did for non-citizens.
His attorneys alleged that Rumsfeld and his subordinates developed the “enemy combatant” status as an end-run around suspects’ constitutional protections, and that they approved of and knew about harsh interrogation procedures used against Padilla and others.
Among other measures, Padilla sought a declaration that his enemy-combatant designation, military detention and treatment were unconstitutional, as well as a declaration that the policies that led to his treatment also were unconstitutional, along with monetary damages of one dollar from each defendant.
Wilkinson said in the panel’s opinion that Padilla already had “extensive opportunities to challenge the legal basis for his detention,” including in several habeas corpus proceedings.
Padilla’s attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement Monday that in dismissing his client’s lawsuit, the appeals court “handed the government a blank check to commit any abuse in the name of national security, even the brutal torture of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.
“This immunity is not only anathema to a democracy governed by laws, but contrary to history’s lesson that in times of fear our values are a strength, not a hindrance,” said Wizner, litigation director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
Rumsfeld’s lawyer, David B. Rivkin Jr., said in a statement Monday that the decision “reaffirms the fundamental principle that our nation’s security is the constitutional responsibility of the president and his officers, as well as Congress, and that the courts must defer to their judgments on how best to protect the nation and its people.”
Authorities arrested Padilla in 2002 on suspicion that he was collaborating to build a radioactive bomb. Government officials labeled him an “enemy combatant” and transferred him from a civilian jail to the Charleston brig, where guards and interrogators imposed conditions similar to those at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba.
The government ultimately dropped the dirty-bomb charge, and Padilla’s lawyers challenged his detention. After officials released him from the brig, they transferred him to the civilian court system, where a Florida court convicted him in 2007 of supporting terrorism in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya.
He’s serving 17 years in a federal prison in Colorado while that case is under appeal.
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