Supreme Court flips, will hear detainee claims

June 25, 2007
Supreme Court flips, will hear detainee claims

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed course Friday and agreed to hear claims of Guantanamo detainees that they have a right to challenge their detentions in American federal courts.

he decision, announced in a brief order released Friday, sets the stage for a legal fight that appears likely to shape debates in the Bush administration about how to close a detention center that has become a lightning rod for international criticism. More than 370 men are being held at the naval station on a scrubby corner of Cuba.

The unusual order, which required votes from five of the nine justices, rescinded an April order in which the justices declined to review a federal appeals court decision that ruled against the detainees.

The court offered no explanation for the change. But the order meant that the justices will hear the full appeal in their next term, perhaps by December. The court rarely grants such motions for reconsideration.Some experts on Supreme Court procedure said they knew of no similar reversal by the court in decades.