Mixed rulings on terror fight

The justices also agreed to hear a case involving medicinal use of marijuana.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court delivered a mixed verdict on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies, ruling that the U.S. government has the power to hold American citizens and foreign nationals without charges or trial, but that detainees can challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.
The administration had sought a more clear-cut endorsement of its policies than it got today. The White House had claimed broad authority to seize and hold potential terrorists or their protectors for as long as the president saw fit -- and without interference from judges or lawyers.
In both cases, the ruling was 6-3, although the lineup of justices was different in the two decisions.
Ruling in the case of American-born detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the court has "made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."
Congress did give the president authority to hold Hamdi, a four-justice plurality of the court said, but that does not cancel out the basic right to a day in court.
The court ruled similarly in the case of about 600 foreign-born men held indefinitely at a U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The men can use American courts to contest their captivity and treatment, the high court said.
Padilla must refile suit
The Supreme Court sidestepped a third major terrorism case, ruling that a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainee Jose Padilla improperly named Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instead of the much lower-level military officer in charge of the Navy brig in South Carolina where Padilla has been held for more than two years.
Padilla must refile a lawsuit challenging his detention in a lower court.
Also today, the Supreme Court said it will consider whether sick people who smoke pot on a doctor's orders are subject to a federal ban on marijuana.
The court agreed today to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say marijuana is the only drug that helps alleviate their chronic pain and other medical problems.
The high court will hear the case sometime next winter. It was among eight new cases the court added to its calendar for the coming term. The current term is expected to end this week.
Appeals court ruling
The marijuana case came to the Supreme Court after the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that a federal law outlawing marijuana does not apply to California patients whose doctors have prescribed the drug.
In its 2-1 decision, the appeals court said prosecuting medical marijuana users under the federal Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional if the marijuana is not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes.
Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the appeals court majority that smoking pot on the advice of a doctor is "different in kind from drug trafficking." The court added that "this limited use is clearly distinct from the broader illicit drug market."
In its appeal to the justices, the government argued that state laws making exceptions for "medical marijuana" are trumped by federal drug laws.
Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act to control "all manufacturing, possession and distribution of any" drug it lists, Bush administration Supreme Court lawyer Theodore Olson wrote.
"That goal cannot be achieved if the intrastate manufacturing, possession and distribution of a drug may occur without any federal regulation."
State laws
California's 1996 medical marijuana law allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state have laws similar to California'a. Thirty-five states have passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value.
In states with medical marijuana laws, doctors can give written or oral recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.
The case concerned two seriously ill California women, Angel Raich and Diane Monson. The two had sued Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of federal prosecution.
Raich, a 38-year-old Oakland woman suffering from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain, smokes marijuana every few hours. She said she was partly paralyzed until she started smoking pot.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that members-only clubs that had formed to distribute medical marijuana could not claim their activity was protected by "medical necessity," even if patients have a doctor's recommendation to use the drug.
Last fall, however, the high court refused to hear a separate Bush administration request to consider whether the federal government can punish doctors for recommending the drug to sick patients.
Other cases
Also today, the court:
UWarned police to stop using a strategy intended to extract confessions from criminal suspects before telling them of their right to remain silent. The court, on a 5-4 vote, said that deliberately questioning a suspect twice -- the first time without reading the Miranda warning -- is usually improper. Criminal defense attorneys and civil libertarians had complained that strategy was being used to get around the Supreme Court's landmark 1966 Miranda vs. Arizona ruling, which requires that suspects in custody be told they have the right to remain silent.
UAgreed today to intervene in a lawsuit contending the CIA reneged on a promise of lifetime support to former East Bloc spies now living under assumed names in the United States. CIA Director George Tenet is fighting the lawsuit filed by a husband and wife who defected to the United States from an unidentified country. The suit is at a very early stage, in which the couple identified only as John and Jane Doe want access to documents and other information from the government. The Supreme Court's action means that request is on hold at least until the court rules on the case sometime next year.
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