US Supreme Court hears arguments on habeas corpus for Guantánamo prisoners

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative judge who has emerged as the swing vote, appeared to side with the four moderate associate justices, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer, against the hard-core right-wing bloc of Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Joseph Alito. While there is no way to predict the court’s ruling, expected to be issued before the end of the term next June, it is unlikely to result in the immediate release of any prisoners.

The petitioners in the lead case, Boumediene v. Bush, are six Algerians arrested in Sarajevo shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. A companion case, Al-Odah v. Unites States of America, was brought by another 39 prisoners taken into custody in Afghanistan or Pakistan following the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan.