6/30/2006

Paul Weiss's Amicus Brief Supports Victorious Appellant in Landmark Supreme Court Case

Paul, Weiss filed one of the many amicus briefs supporting the ultimately victorious appellant in   Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the landmark case decided yesterday by the U. S. Supreme Court declaring unlawful the military commissions established by President Bush to try detainees in the war on terror. The Paul, Weiss brief was filed on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Yale Law School Professor William Eskridge, who also were co-counsel on the brief. The brief argued that the President incorrectly invoked certain provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as authority for establishing the commissions because those provisions required that any tribunal convened to try the detainees had to meet the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and the commissions' procedures failed to do so. This turned out to be one of the principal grounds for the Supreme Court's decision. The Paul, Weiss team consisted of retired partner, now of counsel, Sidney Rosdeitcher, associates Aaron Delaney, Colin McNary, Douglas Pravda, Sandra Sheldon and Adam Skaggs and former associate Ananda Martin. The brief supported appellant Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, who was captured in 2001 in Afghanistan and has been held in Guantanamo since June of 2002.