Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2014 | Page 56

FORENSICS JOURNAL harbored those responsible for those attacks. (2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces. the preponderance standard…because preponderance of evidence is typically the standard presumptively applied in habeas contexts” (Waxman, 248). This would essentially become the post-Boumediene requirement for habeas reviews. As noted earlier, the courts’ opinions regarding indefinite detention have not been uniform. Although the U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed upon a standard of proof in the case of Al-Bihani, they left the weight of the evidentiary material presented to be decided by the lower courts (Vladeck, 1453). This freedom of interpretation has resulted in rulings on both sides of the “preponderance line” (Waxman 249). For example, in the similar cases of Al Mutairi v. United States and Boumediene, the presiding judges came to conflicting conclusions. In Al Mutairi, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declared that the government failed to provide sufficient evidence justifying the defendant’s continued detention (Al Mutairi v. United States). Judge Kollar-Kotelly offered that simply linking the defendant to al-Qaeda through his actions was not, in itself, enough to meet the preponderance standard. In Boumediene, a consolidated case, Judge Richard Leon ordered five of the six defendants to be released; however, the detention of the sixth defendant was upheld citing evidence (behaviors) linking him to al-Qaeda (Boumediene v. Bush). The ambiguity of this language was the reasoning behind Hedges v. Obama, an ongoing case. This case, filed by a team of former reporters, is seeking to receive clarification on several aspects of the NDAA 2012. For example, are reporters interviewing and chronicling the doings of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters effectively aiding and supporting their efforts? As of this writing an injunction is pending. Subtitle D, drawing on the AUMF, also authorized the indefinite detention of covered persons “under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Author ^