The Supreme Court Curbs the Prez

The big news today has to be the Supreme Court ruling that the military commissions intended to try the Guantanamo detainees do not pass legal muster. Here's how The Washington Post described the decision:

Brushing aside administration pleas not to second-guess the commander in chief during wartime, a five-justice majority ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.

But the implications for the decision go far beyond that. I'm not exactly a legal scholar, so I'll defer to the more informed minds at SCOTUSblog. They have a number of posts from various people on the subject, but here's Marty Lederman (emphasis all his):

I have not yet read the complete opinions, but from what I've seen of not only the Stevens majority, but also the Kennedy and Breyer concurrences (see Orin Kerr with the relevant AMK and SGB excerpts here), it is hard to overstate the principal, powerfully stated themes emanating from the Court, which are (i) that the President's conduct is subject to the limitations of statute and treaty; and (ii) that Congress's enactments are best construed to require compliance with the international laws of armed conflict.

Even more importantly for present purposes, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today's ruling. The commissions are the least of it.

As usual, Glenn Greenwald is also on the case. He provides an extremely detailed post that hits on the significant and is well worth your time, but here's the short version:

The Court dealt several substantial blows to the administration's theories of executive power beyond the military commission context. And, at the very least, the Court severely weakened, if not outright precluded, the administration's legal defenses with regard to its violations of FISA.

This is all good news, but there's one reason to be wary about the whole thing. The Court decision was 5-3 (Roberts had previously supported the administration position in a lower court, so he recused himself), and the opinion was written by John Paul Stevens. At 86, Stevens is the oldest member of the Court, and you always have to wonder the state of his health. Ann Coulter famously "joked" that he should be murdered, but that suggestion just reminds us of how tenuous his position--and that of a potential moderate majority--is.