Law Commons^™

Opening The Flood Gates: Rasul V. Bush And The Federal Court's New World-Wide Habeas Corpus Jurisdiction, Joseph R. Pope

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This article discusses the Supreme Court's controversial Rasul v. Bush decision--a case dealing with the ability of the federal courts to entertain the habeas petitions filed by terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The article seeks to make four contributions. First, it argues that the Supreme Court has misinterpreted its own precedent in its interpretation of the territorial reach of the habeas corpus statute. Secondly, it argues that the Court misread the historical record pertaining to the territorial reach of the writ of habeas corpus--which antedated the adoption of the Constitution and was explicitly engrafted into the text of …