Breaking news of the day: Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials.
The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners.
In a 5-3 decision, the court said the trials were not authorized by any act of Congress and that their structure and procedures violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.
Actually, things get even more interesting if you dig deeper; not only did the Supreme Court smack down the Guantanamo trials, they also slammed the Bush Administration's claims that the post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force gives them carte blanc to run roughshod over the laws:
Neither the AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force] nor the DTA [Detainee Treatment Act] can be read to provide specific, overriding authorization for the commission convened to try Hamdan. Assuming the AUMF activated the President’s war powers, see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507, and that those powers include authority to convene military commissions in appropriate circumstances, see, e.g., id., at 518, there is nothing in the AUMF’s text or legislative history even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter the authorization set forth in UCMJ Art. 21.
As the kids today would say, PWN3D! 
The ruling itself was along strict partisan lines: the reality-based coalition (Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Kennedy) versus the dissenting Bush-bootlicking sycophants (Alito, Scalia, and Thomas). To my mild surprise, Chief Justice Roberts actually did the right thing by abstaining -- something Thomas and Scalia should have done in Bush v. Gore -- but it's heartwarming to know that even had he voted with the Administration, the Supremes would still have a five-judge majority to slam Bush and Cheney's rampant power grab.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that the neoconservative nutjobs (yeah, I know, redundant) are already gearing up a new campaign of smears and threats to oust the "American-hating" "Al Qaeda sympathizing" "activist" Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Kennedy. Just ask Sandra Day O'Connor...
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