Jose Padilla and the Sixth Amendment

Jose Padilla, an American citizen, arrested in the United States and held in a military prison for 3 1/2 years as an 'enemy combatant' and denied counsel. A first grader could figure out how wrong and unconstitutional that is. Charge him, let him face his accusers, or free him. "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence". U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment

The odd Padilla case "IT is both good and bad news that the federal government has brought an indictment against suspected terrorist Jose Padilla. It is good because it ends three-and-a-half years of unconstitutional detention of a citizen. It is bad because Padilla's argument against preventive detention might have been accepted by the U. S. Supreme Court, and now it will not. Padilla was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 and held as a material witness in a terrorism case. Padilla challenged his detention, and two days before a judge in New York was to hear his demand for release, he was declared by President Bush an unlawful combatant. Federal agents plucked him from the civilian courts and stuffed him in a prison on a military base. The accusation against him was serious: that he had been planning to set off a bomb to spread radioactive waste in an American city. He was not charged with that, however, or with anything. He was not allowed to see a lawyer. He was merely held. A case was brought in his name, and worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which said he had filed it in the wrong jurisdiction. The case was started over. A district court judge ruled for Padilla. On Sept. 8, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the government. At the Supreme Court, the deadline for the government filing its arguments was to have been next Monday. The indictment, which is not for the dirty-bomb plot, but other things, kills the challenge to Padilla's preventive detention. This American should never have been held for three-and-a-half years on a presidential order without being charged with a crime. By relenting at a strategic moment and letting the civilian courts have their prisoner, the government allows the Fourth Circuit's opinion to stand — and that opinion says the government may do this again, at its own discretion".