Los Angeles Times Urges Supreme Court to Rule for Wrongfully Detained Citizen

The Los Angles times published an editorial on Saturday urging the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Abdullah al-Kidd in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, a case that was argued before the Court last Wednesday. The editorial argued that former Attorney General John Ashcroft should not be shielded from damages in a lawsuit brought by Kidd, an American citizen who was wrongfully detained and kept for over two weeks under very harsh conditions:

Kidd sued Ashcroft, who, Kidd maintained, had presided over a policy of using the material witness statute to imprison suspects without the required probable cause. The existence of such a policy is confirmed by the way administration officials described Kidd. In testimony before Congress, FBI Director Robert Mueller mentioned Kidd as being among "suspected terrorists," suggesting that he wasn't being confined in preparation to giving testimony.

The LA Times referred to the case as an “egregious human rights violation,” and urged the Court to ensure that “an ordeal like Kidd’s [doesn’t] happen to anyone else.”

Alliance for Justice has analyzed the case as part of our 2010-11 Corporate Court Docket.