Hamdi v. Rumsfeld

The Court held that a citizen seized as an enemy combatant is entitled to due process to contest his detention.

Overview

Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan, was held in a Navy brig without charges. Justice O'Connor, announcing the judgment, wrote that detention was authorized by the Afghanistan force resolution but that due process demands a citizen receive notice and a fair opportunity to rebut enemy combatant status before a neutral decision maker. The plurality rejected the government's claimed unchecked war powers, famously observing that a state of war is not a blank check for the President. Hamdi remains a leading framework balancing habeas rights against wartime executive authority.