Shoulda nominated Luttig to SCOTUS

He blisters 'em:

A U.S. appeals court, acting in the case of alleged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, today rejected the administration's move to avoid another Supreme Court review of its powers of detention, blasting the government in unusually blunt terms for its behavior in the case which, it said, may have significantly damaged "its credibility before the courts."
The decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond stems from the administration's actions last month just as the Supreme Court was set to consider whether to review the Padilla case.
At that time, after holding him without charges for three-and-a-half years, it indicted Padilla on criminal charges and asked the 4th Circuit to have him moved from a military prison to a civilian prison, thus mooting the issues the Supreme Court might have reviewed on the question of detention without formal charge. On top of that, the government asked the appeals court to withdraw the opinion it issued that might have been considered by the justices, even though that opinion upheld the administration's position on detention.
Today, the panel rejected both requests in an opinion written by J. Michael Luttig, a conservative often mentioned on the administration's short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Maybe the courts are deciding that rubber-stamping anything these megalomaniacs want to do isn't such a good idea. We've been skeptical about how good a case the feds have against Padilla since Ashcroft held that news conference in Russia to announce his arrest. We don't doubt that he had bad intentions. But to imprison a U.S. citizen for three-plus years, they ought to be required to produce some proof. Apparently they can't even trump some up.