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Article: Saying what the law should be: judicial usurpation in Al-Marri v. Wright.
- Article from:
- Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Harvard Society for Law and Public Policy, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Al-Marri v. Wright (1) is the most recent case in the struggle to define who qualifies as an enemy combatant in the Global War on Terror. In Al-Marri, the Fourth Circuit, in contrast with its previous ruling in Padilla v. Hanft, (2) found that the President's authority to designate a person detained on U.S. soil an enemy combatant was greatly limited. In so doing, the court inappropriately usurped legislative and executive powers.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a graduate student, was lawfully residing in Illinois when the FBI arrested him in December of 2001. (3) After criminal proceedings against al-Marri stalled, President Bush declared al-Marri an enemy combatant ...