During his 19-year tenure on the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia, Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland established a mixed record on legal issues surrounding the post-Sept. 11 detention practices at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
He weighed in on one of the earliest Guantanamo cases in 2003, as part of a panel of three judges that unanimously sided with the George W. Bush administration in finding that Guantanamo detainees cannot challenge their imprisonment in federal court — reasoning the Supreme Court ultimately rejected.
But five years later, Garland wrote the 39-page opinion rejecting the government’s designation of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Uigher, as an “enemy combatant,” a classification that had been used to justify his detention without charge at Guantanamo Bay. ...