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Commander in Chief of the Constitution's Vanished Prisoner

 
 
Reply Sat 11 Oct, 2003 09:21 am
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 453 • Replies: 3
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BumbleBeeBoogie
 
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Reply Sat 11 Oct, 2003 09:25 am
Bush is violating Art 1, Sec 9, Para 3 of Constitution
Bill of Attainder
Tech Law Journal: http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed."

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

"These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment." William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

Supreme Court cases construing the Bill of Attainder clause include:

Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wallace 333 (1866).
Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wallace 277 (1866).
U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965).
Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S.425 (1977).
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John Webb
 
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Reply Sun 12 Oct, 2003 05:34 am
Hitler and his Gestapo were not renowned for observing legalities, human rights or even international law, why should his latter-day emulators behave differently?

Consider those doomed without trial and living in cages in Quantanimo Bay? Twisted Evil
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John Webb
 
  1  
Reply Sun 12 Oct, 2003 03:18 pm
More seriously, this may well be the thin end of the wedge for the Administration. If they are permitted to succeed with illegal detention of American citizens on the strength of unproven allegations, as happened in Nazi Germany, how soon before political opponents and dissenters suffer a similar fate?

In which case, start building the concentration camps - and have Bechtel and Halliburton been asked for quotations? Twisted Evil
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