* Abdah v. Obama (D.D.C. July 21, 2010) (granting habeas relief to GTMO detainee Adnan Farhan Abd al Latif)
In a 28-page opinion posted here, Judge Kennedy has granted the habeas petition of a Yemeni detainee named Adnan Farhan Abd al Latif (ISN 156). Unfortunately, this one is very heavily redacted, to the point where it is hard to assess.The long and short of it appears to be that Judge Kennedy did not find reliable some particular item or items of evidence upon which the government sought to rely, and as a result he concluded that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Latif had been part of al Qaeda or the Taliban.
One interesting aspect also worth mention: Judge Kennedy notes that the DC Circuit recently has suggested in dicta on multiple occasions that the preponderance standard might not actually be required as a constitutional matter, but he does not address whether he would have reached a different conclusion had he employed some lower standard in this instance.
By Robert M. Chesney
Robert M. Chesney is Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at UT-Austin School of Law. Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege. He served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include two books under contract with Oxford University Press, one concerning the evolution of detention law and policy and the other examining the judicial role in national security affairs.
View all of Robert M. Chesney's posts.
