1 year along: Executive continues to flaunt Supreme Court Ruling

One year ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that the 500 prisoners held in Gitmo have a right to a habeous corpus review in Federal Courts.

Since then, 200 appeals for habeous corpus have been filed.

The number of these which have been heard: zero.

Why? Because the Justice department has been arguing in front of Federal Judges that, sure, the prisoners may have a right to a hearing under the Supreme Court ruling, but they have no other constitutional rights. Like, for a judge. Review of evidence. Jury of peers. Anything. At all. Basically, the prisoners have a right to have a hearing in an empty federal courtroom, according to the Justice Department.

This is overstepping by the Executive. Seeing that the Executive Branch already controls the Congress, it's no wonder, that Rehnquist -- who concurred with O'Conner and Stevens, both mentioned as possible retirees this year -- is not in a hurry to retire, giving Bush the opportunity to appoint, say, John Bolton's cranky little sister to the Bench.