“‘Even if the Court were to rule in Padilla’s favor,’ Kennedy went on, ‘his present custody status would be unaffected. Padilla is scheduled to be tried on criminal charges. Any consideration of what rights he might be able to assert if he were returned to military custody would be hypothetical, and to no effect, at this stage of the proceedings.” By a margin of 6-3 (Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter dissenting), the Supreme Court punts on Padilla, on the grounds that Padilla’s dilemma has been rendered “hypothetical” now that he’s been transferrred into the normal justice system.
Justice Ginsburg disagrees: “This case…raises a question of profound importance to the Nation. Does the President have authority to imprison indefinitely a United States citizen arrested on United States soil distant from a zone of combat, based on an Executive declaration that the citizen was, at the time of his arrest, an ‘enemy combatant’? It is a question the Court heard, and should have decided, two years ago. Nothing the Government has yet done purports to retract the assertion of Executive power Padilla protests.“