Preventive Detention
Birdsong has heard a lot of talk during the last few days about “Preventive Detention.” This has come in the wake of President Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility where terror suspects have been held for the last five years. The administration has said that in closing the facility some prisoners will be sent to their home countries, others to maximum federal prisons in the United States, and some will be held in “Preventive Detention.” The Obama administration is supposedly working on rules for “Prevention Detention” of terror suspects.
Birdsong wonders how many of the pundits and opinion writers even know what “Preventive Detention” means. Years ago when Birdsong was federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. he had a few criminal cases where he sought “Preventive Detention” of certain defendants. Birdsong is not certain that we can fashion rules of such detention for terror suspects that will not violate due process.
“Preventive Detention” is usually categorized, in the criminal sense, for non-capital crimes as confinement imposed
