Most of the detainees now held at Guantánamo have been imprisoned there for more than a decade without ever being charged with any crime, according to this opinion piece recently published in The National Law Journal. Some would be on their way home but for events wholly unrelated to them, such as President Obama's current ban on returning detainees to Yemen, and face continued detention for an indefinite period of time even though all of the United States’ military and intelligence authorities decided long ago that they should be released. Their habeas petitions ask the judicial branch to perform its constitutional duty to determine whether or not their detentions are lawful.
McKool Smith principals Brent Rushforth and Robert L. Palmer present a compelling argument for addressing this ongoing issue. They represent, pro bono, two detainees at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, seeking writs of habeas corpus.
The full Op-Ed article can be found here.
