ABSTRACT
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court ruled that a US citizen being held in a naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina, was legally detained but that he had a due process right to contest his detention before a neutral magistrate. The acknowledgment that Hamdi was legally detained did not, however, preclude him from relief. Justice O'Connor pointed out that Congress had not suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which requires the government to justify continued incarceration. Whereas the Court of Appeals was willing to defer to the government's claim of a continuing need to incarcerate Hamdi, Justice O'Connor said that "a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government's factual assertion before a neutral decisionmaker."
