Dec
11Status of Guantanamo Bay Cases

The Law Library staff has been following the status of the habeas corpus petitions filed by hundreds of detainees being held at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. For those trying to understand how the cases will be handled in light of the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision in June, we have summarized the current state of the proceedings, along with links to relevant documents.

There are over one hundred cases pending, involving well over two hundred detainees. The open cases have been divided into three groups. The first group is that of 17 Chinese Uighurs detained at Guantanamo. In October, these detainees were ordered released into the United States by D.C. District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina. The case has been appealed to the DC Circuit Court, which held a hearing on November 24, but has not yet issued a decision.

The rest of the cases are currently in front of the District Court. The Court held an executive session to discuss how to proceed in these cases, and issued a resolution in July. The result of the session is that most of the cases have been transferred to Judge Thomas F. Hogan, strictly for the purposes of determining the procedures to be used. These cases will eventually be returned to approximately twelve judges, who will decide these cases on their merits. Judge Hogan has consolidated all of these into a single case for this purpose, and issued a case management order outlining the procedures.

The third group of cases consists of those that have been retained by Judge Richard J. Leon, who has not consolidated them. Judge Leon has issued separate case management orders which establish the procedures he will be using in his cases. We have attached those orders in a zipped folder, and you can see them by clicking the "Download" link at the bottom of this post.

If you are looking for more information, the New York Times has created a database which lists all of the detainees by name, and the District Court's page contains further case documents.

(Georgetown Note: Judges Urbina and Hogan are both graduates of the Law Center and Judge Leon is an adjunct faculty member.)

Update: On December 16, Judge Hogan substantially amended his case management order, outlining the procedures to be used in most of these cases. SCOTUSblog explains the implications of the new order.