Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-15-05020/USCOURTS-caDC-15-05020-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 17, 2016 Decided August 30, 2016

No. 15-1023

IN RE: ABD AL-RAHIM HUSSEIN MUHAMMED AL-NASHIRI,

PETITIONER

On Petition for Writ of Mandamus 

and Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-01207)

______

Consolidated with 15-5020

Michel D. Paradis, Counsel, Office of the Chief Defense 

Counsel, argued the cause for petitioner-appellant. With him 

on the briefs was Richard Kammen. Nancy Hollander entered 

an appearance.

Somnath Raj Chatterjee was on the brief for amici curiae 

Retired Military Admirals and Generals in support of 

appellant.

Robert Barton was on the brief for amicus curiae

Professor David W. Glazier, Loyola Law School of Los 

Angeles, in support of petitioner-appellant.

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David H. Remes and John T. Parry were on the brief for 

amicus curiae Physicians for Human Rights in support of 

petitioner.

Eric S. Montalvo was on the brief for amicus curiae

National Institute of Military Justice in support of petitioner. 

Joseph F. Palmer, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for respondent-appellee. With him on the 

brief were Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant 

Attorney General, Matthew M. Collette, Sonia K. McNeil, 

Michael Shih, and John F. De Pue, Attorneys, and Steven M. 

Dunne, Chief, Appellate Unit. 

Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Abd Al-Rahim Hussein 

Muhammed Al-Nashiri is the alleged mastermind of the 

bombings of the U.S.S. Cole and the French supertanker the 

M/V Limburg, as well as the attempted bombing of the U.S.S. 

The Sullivans. Together, the completed attacks killed 18 crew 

members and injured dozens more. The government charged 

Al-Nashiri with nine offenses for his role in the attacks and 

convened a military commission to try him. His trial, and any 

subsequent appeals, will be governed by the Military 

Commissions Act, in which Congress strengthened the 

procedural protections and review mechanisms for military 

commissions in response to the Supreme Court’s guidance in

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Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). Al-Nashiri now 

seeks to avoid the structure Congress has created. He petitions 

for a writ of mandamus to dissolve the military commission 

convened to try him and appeals the district court’s denial of 

his motion to preliminarily enjoin that trial. We deny the 

petition for mandamus relief and affirm the district court. 

I

A

At this pretrial stage, we recount the details of AlNashiri’s alleged offenses based on the information provided 

in the government’s charges. Al-Nashiri, a Saudi national, is a

member of al Qaeda who orchestrated the attempted bombing 

of The Sullivans in January 2000 and the successful bombings 

of the Cole in October 2000 and the Limburg in October 

2002.

Al-Nashiri met with Osama bin Laden and other senior 

members of al Qaeda in 1997 or 1998 to plan a “boats 

operation” that would attack ships in the Arabian Peninsula. 

The government argues that while bin Laden was planning the 

“boats operation,” he was also coordinating the “planes 

operation” that would unfold on September 11, 2001. At bin 

Laden’s direction, Al-Nashiri and his alleged co-conspirator, 

Walid bin Attash, traveled to Yemen around 1998 to prepare 

for the boats operation. Al-Nashiri scouted the region and 

monitored ship traffic. He and his co-conspirators ultimately 

focused on Aden Harbor and bought and stored explosives to 

carry out an attack there. In 1999, after bin Attash was 

arrested, bin Laden instructed Al-Nashiri to take control of the 

operation. Al-Nashiri and his co-conspirators recruited others 

to the cause, bought a boat, and obtained false identification 

documents.

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Under Al-Nashiri’s direction, his co-conspirators steered 

an explosive-filled boat toward The Sullivans in January 2000 

while the warship was refueling. But the boat carrying the 

explosives foundered in Yemen’s Aden Harbor, thwarting the 

plan. Al-Nashiri and his co-conspirators recovered the boat 

and confirmed that the explosives could be used in future 

attacks. Sometime after the failed attack, Al-Nashiri returned 

to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden and other high-ranking 

members of al Qaeda and to receive explosives training from 

an al Qaeda expert. 

By the summer of 2000, Al-Nashiri had returned to 

Yemen to carry out preparations for a second attack in Aden 

Harbor. He and his co-conspirators rented a house from which 

they could surveil the harbor, repaired and tested the attack 

boat, filled it with explosives, and arranged for the attack to 

be videotaped. Sometime around September 2000, Al-Nashiri 

reported to bin Attash—who by then had been released from 

jail and was in Afghanistan—that the operation was ready and 

that he had chosen suicide bombers to carry it out. Before the 

attack, Al-Nashiri returned to Afghanistan at bin Laden’s 

direction and told him the bombing was imminent.

Adhering to Al-Nashiri’s instructions, in October 2000

the suicide bombers launched the boat—again filled with 

explosives—and piloted it toward the Cole, which was

refueling in Aden Harbor. The bombers gave friendly gestures 

to crew members and steered their boat alongside the Cole, 

where they detonated the explosives. The blast killed 17 crew 

members and injured at least 37, and left a hole in the Cole’s 

side measuring about 30 feet in diameter.

After the attack, Al-Nashiri began planning another

bombing. He and his co-conspirators acquired another boat 

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and explosives, with Al-Nashiri directing the transfer of 

money to fund the attack. In October 2002, suicide bombers 

under Al-Nashiri’s direction drew their explosive-filled boat 

alongside the French supertanker the Limburg near the port of 

Al Mukallah, Yemen. The explosion blasted a hole in the 

ship’s hull, killing one crew member and injuring 12. Some 

90,000 barrels of oil also spilled from the tanker into the Gulf 

of Aden.

Local authorities arrested Al-Nashiri in Dubai in 2002 

and turned him over to U.S. custody. He was transferred to

the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2006. A year later, a 

Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined that AlNashiri was detainable as an “enemy combatant” under the 

Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress had 

passed and the President had signed in response to the attacks 

of September 11, 2001. Al-Nashiri v. MacDonald, 741 F.3d 

1002, 1005 (9th Cir. 2013). The AUMF permits the President 

to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against the 

“nations, organizations, or persons” he determines were 

responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Pub. L. No. 107-40, § 2(a), 

115 Stat. 224, 224 (2001). Al-Nashiri filed a petition for a

writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for 

the District of Columbia in 2008, challenging various aspects 

of his detention at Guantanamo. Three years later, with AlNashiri’s habeas petition still pending, the Defense 

Department convened a military commission to try him for 

offenses including terrorism, murder in violation of the law of 

war, and attacking civilians. In re Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d 71, 75 

(D.C. Cir. 2015). The government is seeking the death 

penalty.

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B

The current system of military commissions at 

Guantanamo Bay “is the product of an extended dialogue

among the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court.” 

Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d at 73. After the passage of the AUMF in 

September 2001, the President began detaining enemy 

combatants and trying them by military commission at 

Guantanamo. The Supreme Court considered the legality of 

the commissions established by the President in Hamdan v. 

Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), and held that they exceeded 

certain limits Congress had previously imposed on the 

President’s authority. Specifically, the Court concluded that 

the President’s commissions did not comply with procedural 

protections set out in the Uniform Code of Military Justice 

(UCMJ) and the Geneva Conventions. See id. at 613, 620-28. 

But four Justices explained that “[b]ecause Congress []

prescribed these limits [on presidential authority], Congress 

can change them, requiring a new analysis consistent with the 

Constitution and other governing laws.” Id. at 653 (Kennedy,

J., concurring). 

In response, Congress passed the Military Commissions 

Act (MCA), which established a system of military 

commissions and largely exempted them from the 

requirements of the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions. The 

MCA created the Court of Military Commission Review 

(CMCR) and empowered it to review judgments of military

commissions. Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d at 74. Under the current 

version of the MCA, as revised in 2009, the CMCR is 

composed of military and civilian judges who sit in panels of 

at least three. See 10 U.S.C. §§ 950d, 950f. It reviews 

questions of both fact and law. See id. § 950f. Our court has

authority under the MCA to review military-commission 

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convictions, as approved by the CMCR. Id. § 950g(a). We 

may review the CMCR’s legal conclusions, including the 

sufficiency of the evidence supporting the verdict. Id.

§ 950g(d). 

The MCA provides that military commissions have 

jurisdiction to try “alien unprivileged enemy belligerent[s],” 

id. § 948c, for “any offense made punishable” by the MCA, 

“whether such offense was committed before, on, or after 

September 11, 2001.” Id. § 948d. The statute then lists 32 

offenses that are “triable by military commission.” Id. § 950t. 

It further provides that “[a]n offense specified in this 

subchapter is triable by military commission under this 

chapter only if the offense is committed in the context of and 

associated with hostilities.” Id. § 950p(c). Hostilities are 

defined as “any conflict subject to the laws of war.” Id. 

§ 948a(9).

Al-Nashiri’s military-commission proceedings were 

placed on hold in early 2015, when the presiding military 

judge granted Al-Nashiri’s motion to abate the commission’s 

proceedings while the government pursued interlocutory 

appeals of two rulings. By statute, the government may take 

an interlocutory appeal of any ruling by a military judge that 

terminates commission proceedings on a charge or that 

“excludes evidence that is substantial proof of a fact material 

in the proceeding.” 10 U.S.C. § 950d(a)(1)-(2). 

In the first interlocutory appeal, the government 

contested the military judge’s dismissal in 2014 of the charges 

stemming from the bombing of the Limburg. Al-Nashiri, 791 

F.3d at 75. The military judge dismissed these charges 

because the government had not introduced evidence to 

support its claim that the military commission had jurisdiction 

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over offenses related to an attack on a French vessel. Two 

military judges and one civilian judge were assigned to hear 

this appeal. In the second interlocutory appeal, the 

government challenged a 2015 ruling by the military judge

that forbade it from introducing evidence that Al-Nashiri’s 

actions endangered the lives of foreign nationals not onboard 

the Cole.

Al-Nashiri sought a writ of mandamus from our court in 

late 2014 to halt the first of these interlocutory appeals. He 

argued in part that because the two military judges on his 

CMCR appellate panel were “principal” officers, they should 

have been appointed to the CMCR by the President and 

confirmed by the Senate. See U.S. CONST. art. II, § 2, cl. 2; 

Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d at 82. Their assignment to the CMCR by 

the Secretary of Defense violated the Constitution, Al-Nashiri 

asserted. See Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d at 82. We denied his 

petition because Al-Nashiri had not shown he was clearly and 

indisputably entitled to mandamus relief, but we observed that 

the President and Senate could “put to rest any Appointments 

Clause questions regarding the CMCR’s military judges” by 

nominating and confirming them. Id. at 86. The President 

chose to take that tack. At the government’s request—which 

Al-Nashiri did not oppose—the CMCR stayed its proceedings 

in both interlocutory appeals in June 2015 while the 

confirmation process was underway.

The Senate confirmed two military judges in April 2016, 

and the CMCR lifted its stay at the government’s request, 

even though Al-Nashiri asked the CMCR to continue the stay. 

See Order, United States v. Al-Nashiri, No. 14-001 

(U.S.C.M.C.R. May 18, 2016). The CMCR then ruled on AlNashiri’s interlocutory appeals in June and July 2016, 

reversing the military judge’s dismissal of the charges related 

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to the Limburg and its order excluding evidence. After the 

resolution of these appeals, the government asked the military 

commission to proceed. The commission granted that request, 

and the government states that commission proceedings will 

resume in September 2016. See Rule 28(j) Letter of Resp’t 

(filed Aug. 5, 2016). 

C

In the present case, Al-Nashiri does not challenge the

structural or procedural features of the military commissions 

created by Congress. He does not assert that the commissions 

are unconstitutional or that he was improperly classified as an 

“alien unprivileged enemy belligerent” subject to their 

jurisdiction. 10 U.S.C. § 948c. Instead, he argues that the 

offenses for which he has been charged are not triable by a 

military commission under the MCA because they were not 

“committed in the context of and associated with hostilities.”

Id. § 950p(c). Because his alleged offenses had no nexus to 

hostilities, he contends, they are not war crimes, the only type 

of crime over which a military commission has jurisdiction 

under the Constitution.

Al-Nashiri first advanced these arguments in a motion to 

dismiss in 2012, but the military judge denied the motion 

without prejudice. According to the military judge, the 

existence of hostilities was a mixed question of law and fact. 

To the extent that it was a pure question of law, he deferred to 

what he called the “implicit” determinations of the political 

branches that hostilities existed at the time of Al-Nashiri’s 

alleged offenses. To the extent that the existence of hostilities 

was a question of fact, the government would need to prove 

that at trial.

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Before us, Al-Nashiri advances his claims in two separate 

actions, which are consolidated here. The first began in 2014, 

when Al-Nashiri received permission from our district court 

to amend the habeas petition he filed in 2008. His amended 

petition asked the district court to enjoin his trial by the 

military commission and enter a declaratory judgment that his 

conduct did not occur in the context of hostilities. He also 

moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent his trial before 

the military commission until the district court ruled on his 

habeas petition. The government opposed this motion and 

moved to hold the habeas action in abeyance to allow the 

commission proceedings and corresponding appeals to run 

their course. To support its motion to hold the case in 

abeyance, the government relied upon Schlesinger v. 

Councilman, 420 U.S. 738 (1975), where the Supreme Court 

directed federal courts to generally refrain from enjoining 

ongoing courts-martial. See id. at 756-58. According to the 

government, Councilman likewise supports abstaining from 

interfering with ongoing proceedings in a military 

commission. 

The district court found that adjudicating Al-Nashiri’s 

habeas petition would unduly interfere with the proceedings

of the military commission and accordingly granted the 

government’s motion to hold the case in abeyance pending 

the resolution of his military-commission trial and any 

subsequent appeals. Al-Nashiri v. Obama, 76 F. Supp. 3d 218, 

221-23 (D.D.C. 2014). The district court then denied as moot 

Al-Nashiri’s motion to preliminarily enjoin his militarycommission trial pending the resolution of his habeas petition. 

Id. at 222 n.3. On appeal, Al-Nashiri challenges the district 

court’s denial of preliminary injunctive relief, arguing 

primarily that abstention was inappropriate and that the 

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district court therefore should have decided his motion on the 

merits.

The second action before us is a petition for a writ of 

mandamus. Al-Nashiri asks us to dissolve the military 

commission convened to try him, also on the ground that his 

conduct did not take place in the context of hostilities. 

We have jurisdiction to review the district court’s denial 

of preliminary injunctive relief under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).

1

We have jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus to a military 

commission under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a), 

and the 2009 MCA, 10 U.S.C. § 950g(a). See Al-Nashiri, 791 

F.3d at 76-78 (“[T]his Court has jurisdiction to issue a writ of 

mandamus in aid of our appellate jurisdiction of military 

commissions and the CMCR.”). We affirm the district court 

and deny Al-Nashiri’s petition for mandamus relief.

 1 We need not weigh in on whether the district court had 

subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate Al-Nashiri’s motion for 

preliminary injunctive relief. Although the government suggests in 

its briefing before us that Al-Nashiri’s claim does not sound in 

habeas—a claim that calls into question the district court’s statutory 

jurisdiction, see 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2)—we affirm the denial of 

that motion for reasons we explain below. Because the motion was 

properly denied on threshold grounds, we need not consider the 

district court’s subject matter jurisdiction any further. See Sinochem 

Int’l Co. v. Malay. Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 (2007) 

(“[A] federal court has leeway ‘to choose among threshold grounds 

for denying audience to a case on the merits.’” (quoting Ruhrgas 

AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 585 (1999))).

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II

We first consider Al-Nashiri’s claim that the district court 

erred in denying his motion to preliminarily enjoin his trial 

before the military commission pending the resolution of his 

habeas petition. The district court denied the motion based on 

its decision to hold Al-Nashiri’s habeas petition in abeyance

pending the resolution of his case in the commission. Thus, to 

determine whether this denial was proper, we must examine 

whether the district court erred in staying Al-Nashiri’s habeas 

case.

2

We emphasize at the outset that the question in this case 

is not whether Al-Nashiri will be able to make his “hostilities” 

argument to an Article III court. The MCA provides an appeal 

as of right to our court. The question in this case is when that 

argument to us may occur. The district court decided that

Article III review should occur at the time that Congress 

contemplated: after any conviction and accompanying appeal 

in the military system. We generally review such decisions to 

stay a case “in favor of an ongoing proceeding” for abuse of 

discretion. Handy v. Shaw, Bransford, Veilleux & Roth, 325 

F.3d 346, 349 (D.C. Cir. 2003). “Whether the lower court 

 2 Finality principles would normally prevent us from 

reviewing a decision to stay a case. But when the denial of a 

preliminary injunction—which is a reviewable final judgment, see 

28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1)—is based on the decision to stay a case, we 

can review the propriety of the stay. See Privitera v. Cal. Bd. of 

Med. Quality Assurance, 926 F.2d 890, 892-93 (9th Cir. 1991). To 

treat a stay as unreviewable under such circumstances “would mean 

that the denial of the preliminary injunction would be effectively 

unappealable because a reversal on that issue would have no 

effect.” Id. at 892. 

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applied the proper legal standard in exercising that discretion, 

however, is a question of law reviewed de novo.” Id. We 

assume these standards apply here. We first ask whether the 

district court “applied the proper legal standard” in deciding 

to abstain from hearing Al-Nashiri’s habeas petition. In other 

words, did the district court commit legal error in extending 

the abstention principles established in Schlesinger v. 

Councilman, 420 U.S. 738 (1975), which dealt with courtsmartial, to Al-Nashiri’s pretrial challenge to the subject matter 

jurisdiction of a military commission?3 Concluding that the 

district court did not err as a matter of law, we then ask 

whether its ultimate decision to abstain based on any 

circumstances unique to Al-Nashiri’s case was appropriate. 

Because we conclude that it was, we affirm the district court.

A

The district court did not err, as a matter of law, in 

extending the principles announced in Councilman to AlNashiri’s case.

 3 As an initial matter, we note that Al-Nashiri and the 

government disagree about the role that the hostilities requirement 

plays in the MCA. Al-Nashiri argues that the existence of hostilities 

is a legal question that does not hinge on the facts proved at trial. 

For its part, the government contends that the hostilities 

requirement is a “necessary element of the offense with which he 

has been charged” that the government must prove at trial. We 

assume Al-Nashiri is correct that the hostilities requirement is a 

legal question going to the commission’s subject matter 

jurisdiction. Even so, as we will explain, the district court did not 

err in permitting the military commission to resolve the question in 

the first instance.

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i

Federal courts generally “have a strict duty to exercise 

the jurisdiction that is conferred upon them by Congress.” 

Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 716 (1996). 

This duty “is not, however, absolute.” Id. In the context of 

criminal prosecutions, federal courts routinely decline to 

adjudicate petitions that seek collateral relief to prevent a 

pending prosecution. See, e.g., Henry v. Henkel, 235 U.S. 

219, 228-30 (1914) (petition seeking habeas relief); JMM 

Corp. v. District of Columbia, 378 F.3d 1117, 1120 (D.C. Cir. 

2004) (petition seeking injunctive and declaratory relief). This 

practice stems in part from a “basic doctrine of equity 

jurisprudence,” which provides that courts should not exercise 

their equitable discretion to enjoin criminal proceedings, as 

long as the defendant has an adequate legal remedy in the 

form of trial and direct appeal. Jarkesy v. SEC, 803 F.3d 9, 26 

(D.C. Cir. 2015); see also Deaver v. Seymour, 822 F.2d 66,

68-69 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Thus, where the issue the petitioner 

challenges can be litigated in pretrial motions and raised as a 

defense at trial, federal courts typically require the petitioner 

to navigate that process instead of skirting it. See Jarkesy, 803 

F.3d at 26.

In Councilman, the Supreme Court extended this basic 

doctrine to a new context: courts-martial. The case involved a 

court-martial convened to try an Army officer for selling and 

possessing marijuana. At the time, Supreme Court precedent 

required that an alleged offense be “service connected” to be 

constitutionally triable by court-martial. See O’Callahan v. 

Parker, 395 U.S. 258, 272-73 (1969) (establishing “service 

connection” rule), overruled by Solorio v. United States, 483 

U.S. 435 (1987). Councilman filed suit in district court to 

enjoin the court-martial from proceeding, arguing that the 

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military lacked jurisdiction to try him because his alleged 

offense was not connected to his service in the army. See 

Councilman, 420 U.S. at 741. The district court granted the 

injunction, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed. Id. at 739-40. But 

the Supreme Court reversed, holding that “when a serviceman 

charged with crimes by military authorities can show no harm 

other than that attendant to resolution of his case in the 

military court system, the federal district courts must refrain 

from intervention, by way of injunction or otherwise.” Id. at 

758. 

The Court grounded its decision in the corresponding 

abstention doctrine for state criminal prosecutions announced 

four years earlier in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). 

Abstention in favor of ongoing state criminal proceedings in 

Younger was based on two considerations: the traditional rule 

that courts of equity should not enjoin criminal prosecutions 

where an adequate remedy at law exists, see id. at 43-44, and 

interests of “comity,” perhaps better described in that case as 

“federalism,” id. at 44-45. Interference in ongoing state 

proceedings would disrupt the careful balance between state 

and federal power. See id.

The Councilman Court acknowledged that the “peculiar 

demands of federalism” were not applicable to courts-martial, 

but it explained that “factors equally compelling” justified its 

decision to allow courts-martial to run their course without 

interference by the federal courts. 420 U.S. at 757. As the 

Supreme Court explained in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 

557 (2006), Councilman relied on two “comity” factors other 

than federalism, focusing on the military interests advanced 

by allowing courts-martial to proceed uninterrupted and on 

the adequacy of the court-martial system in protecting service 

members’ rights: 

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First, military discipline and, therefore, the efficient 

operation of the Armed Forces are best served if the 

military justice system acts without regular interference 

from civilian courts. Second, federal courts should 

respect the balance that Congress struck between military 

preparedness and fairness to individual service members 

when it created “an integrated system of military courts 

and review procedures, a critical element of which is the 

Court of Military Appeals consisting of civilian judges 

completely removed from all military influence or 

persuasion . . . .”

Id. at 586 (quoting Councilman, 420 U.S. at 758) (internal 

citations omitted). As the Court later explained, “abstention in 

the face of ongoing court-martial proceedings is justified by 

our expectation that the military court system established by 

Congress—with its substantial procedural protections and 

provision for appellate review by independent civilian 

judges—‘will vindicate servicemen’s constitutional rights.’” 

Id. (quoting Councilman, 420 U.S. at 758).

In Hamdan, the Supreme Court considered whether to 

extend the principles set out in Councilman to abstain from 

adjudicating a Guantanamo detainee’s challenge to his trial 

before a military commission. To reiterate, the commission 

set to try Hamdan was convened by the President without 

specific congressional authorization. In that context, the Court 

declined to abstain, concluding that neither of Councilman’s 

comity considerations was present. As to the first, the Court 

said simply that Hamdan was “not a member of our Nation’s 

Armed Forces, so concerns about military discipline do not 

apply.” Id. at 587. And as to the second, the Court explained 

that the military commission trying Hamdan was “not part of 

the integrated system of military courts, complete with 

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independent review panels, that Congress has established.” Id.

Unlike Councilman, the Court emphasized, Hamdan had no 

right to appeal a conviction to a review body that was 

“structural[ly] insulat[ed] from military influence.” Id. Rather, 

any conviction would be reviewed only by Executive Branch 

officials: first a panel of three military members selected by 

the Secretary of Defense, then the Secretary himself, and

finally the President. Id. And because these review bodies 

lacked the structural independence of the Court of Appeals for 

the Armed Forces, whose civilian judges review court-martial 

convictions, they bore “insufficient conceptual similarity to 

state courts to warrant invocation of abstention principles.” Id.

at 588. The Court further explained that the government had 

not identified any other “important countervailing interest”

that justified abstaining. Id. at 589 (quoting Quackenbush,

517 U.S. at 716).

The Hamdan Court instead determined that Ex parte 

Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), was the most relevant precedent. 

In Quirin, rather than decline to intervene in ongoing 

proceedings of a military commission, the Court convened a 

special Term to hear the case and expedited its review, 

explaining that the issues were of great public importance. See 

id. at 19. The Hamdan Court closed its discussion by noting: 

“While we certainly do not foreclose the possibility that 

abstention may be appropriate in some cases seeking review 

of ongoing military commission proceedings (such as military 

commissions convened on the battlefield), the foregoing 

discussion makes clear that, under our precedent, abstention is 

not justified here.” 548 U.S. at 590.

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ii

Much has changed since Hamdan. Within four months of 

the Supreme Court’s opinion—and in direct response to it—

Congress passed the MCA, which established enhanced 

procedural protections and rigorous review mechanisms for 

military commissions. The committee report accompanying 

the House version of the MCA indicated that the legislation 

was an effort to respond to Hamdan, in which “[t]he Court [] 

suggested that the President could ask the United States 

Congress to authorize commission rules that diverge from the 

UCMJ, provided that they were consistent with the 

Constitution and other laws.” H.R. REP. NO. 109-664, pt. 1, at 

4-5 (2006). And when signing the 2006 MCA, President Bush 

explained that the Supreme Court had ruled that the military

commissions he had established after September 11 “needed 

to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.” 

See Statement by President George W. Bush upon Signing S. 

3930, 2006 U.S.C.C.A.N. S61 (Oct. 17, 2006). The President 

explained that he “asked Congress for that authority, and they 

[] provided it” by passing the MCA. Id.

Al-Nashiri and amici urge that despite the significant 

changes enacted in the MCA, abstention remains as 

inappropriate here as it was in Hamdan. They argue that AlNashiri, like Hamdan, is not a member of the Armed Forces, 

and commissions are fundamentally different from courtsmartial. By contrast, the government contends that the MCA 

established the rigorous system of review found lacking in 

Hamdan and that the district court was warranted in allowing 

the military commission to proceed. It insists that while 

Councilman does not directly control, it is the closest 

analogue in our jurisprudence, because comity considerations 

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“equally compelling” as those in Councilman, 420 U.S. at 

757, point in favor of abstention here.

To determine whether “equally compelling” factors exist 

here, we must identify the precise role played by 

Councilman’s two comity considerations. Evaluating those 

considerations, we conclude that to abstain we must be 

assured of both the adequacy of the alternative system in 

protecting the rights of defendants and the importance of the 

interests served by allowing that system to proceed 

uninterrupted by federal courts. The comity considerations in 

Councilman established both of these elements. With respect 

to adequacy, the Court did not evaluate the on-the-ground

performance of courts-martial in protecting service members’ 

rights. Instead, it “assumed” the sufficiency of the structure 

Congress created, with its substantial procedural protections 

and provision for appellate review by judges insulated from 

military influence. Id. at 758; see also Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 

586 (characterizing Councilman’s reasoning as such).

4 And as 

 4 Although the Court in Councilman assumed that the 

alternative judicial system at issue would adequately protect 

defendants’ rights, we doubt that it would have reached the same 

result if the plaintiff had identified flaws in that system that would 

prevent him from fully litigating his defenses. Indeed, case law 

indicates that abstention is appropriate only where a plaintiff has “a 

full and fair opportunity to litigate” his claims in the alternative 

forum. JMM Corp. v. District of Columbia, 378 F.3d 1117, 1127 

(D.C. Cir. 2004) (quoting Ohio Civil Rights Comm’n v. Dayton 

Christian Sch., Inc., 477 U.S. 619, 627 (1986)); see also Browder v. 

City of Albuquerque, 787 F.3d 1076, 1084 (10th Cir. 2015) 

(Gorsuch, J., concurring) (explaining that abstention is 

inappropriate where state processes will not remedy the plaintiff’s 

injury because they are inadequate either on their face or in 

practice). 

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20

for importance, the Court explained that abstention would 

serve a vital interest by permitting the military to discipline 

soldiers without immediate interference by federal courts. 

Councilman, 420 U.S. at 757.

The Court’s emphasis on these two considerations made 

sense in light of its abstention jurisprudence, developed in the 

context of state-court proceedings. That precedent made clear 

that abstention was appropriate only (1) where the petitioner 

would have an adequate remedy in the alternative forum, see 

Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 124 (1975) (“The policy of 

equitable restraint [in favor of state criminal proceedings] is 

founded on the premise that ordinarily a pending state 

prosecution provides the accused a fair and sufficient 

opportunity for vindication of federal constitutional rights.”); 

Younger, 401 U.S. at 45 (“The accused should first set up and 

rely upon his defense in the state courts . . . unless it plainly 

appears that this course would not afford adequate 

protection.” (quoting Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U.S. 240, 243-44 

(1926))), and (2) where abstention would “clearly serve an 

important countervailing interest,” Allegheny Cty. v. Frank 

Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 189 (1959), such as reducing 

friction between federal and state governments, see Younger, 

401 U.S. at 44 (emphasizing the need to “respect [] state 

functions” by avoiding pretrial intervention in state criminal 

prosecutions). The Councilman Court simply applied these

central considerations to the context of courts-martial.

Taking our cue from Councilman, then, we ask two 

questions to determine whether any sufficiently “compelling” 

factors justified the district court’s decision to abstain. First, 

we consider whether the system enacted to adjudicate AlNashiri’s guilt will adequately protect his rights. And second, 

we examine whether an “important countervailing interest”

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21

justifies the decision to avoid the district court adjudicating a 

pretrial challenge to the subject matter jurisdiction of a 

military commission created under the MCA.

iii

To answer the first question, we are convinced that the 

MCA’s review structure is adequate because it is virtually 

identical to the review system for courts-martial approved by 

the Court in Councilman. In the MCA, Congress established 

an “integrated” scheme dictating how enemy belligerents are 

to be tried and obtain appellate review, Councilman, 420 U.S. 

at 758, and two Presidents sanctioned this approach—

President Bush in 2006, when the MCA was first enacted, and 

President Obama in 2009, when it was revised. Pursuant to 

that structure, Al-Nashiri faces a trial with a military judge 

presiding and a “jury” that, in capital cases, generally consists 

of twelve military officers known as “members” of the 

military commission. 10 U.S.C. §§ 948m, 949m(c). If he is 

convicted, the convening authority—the Defense Department 

official who initially referred the case to trial—may review 

the guilty finding and set it aside, or reduce it to a finding of 

guilty of a lesser-included offense. Id. § 950b. The convening 

authority must review a sentence to approve, disapprove, 

commute, or suspend it in whole or in part. Id. A final guilty 

finding, as modified by the convening authority, will then be 

reviewed by the CMCR unless the defendant properly waives 

this right of review. Id. §§ 950f, 950c. The CMCR is 

composed of both military and civilian judges and has the 

power to review factual and legal questions alike. Id. § 950f. 

The defendant may appeal the CMCR’s decision to our court, 

and we are empowered to review all questions of law, 

including the sufficiency of the evidence. Id. § 950g. Finally, 

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our ruling can be challenged via petition for writ of certiorari 

in the Supreme Court. Id. § 950g(e).

These review structures “closely (and intentionally) 

mirror[] the current structure for . . . review of courtsmartial.” Stephen I. Vladeck, Exceptional Courts and the 

Structure of American Military Justice, in GUANTANAMO AND 

BEYOND 163, 175 (Fionnuala Ni Aolain & Oren Gross eds.,

2013). Not only does the composition of the commission itself 

closely mirror that of a court-martial—both have twelve 

members in capital cases and a presiding military judge—but 

the structure of appellate review is virtually identical across 

the two systems. The “scope of the CMCR’s post-conviction 

review is a word-for-word copy” of the portion of the UCMJ 

that sets out the authority of each service’s Court of Criminal 

Appeals, the military body that reviews court-martial 

convictions. Id. Compare 10 U.S.C. § 950f, with id. § 866. 

Similarly, the authority given to this court to review the 

CMCR’s decision is as broad as the authority that the UCMJ 

gives the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the tribunal 

that Councilman approved as sufficiently “removed from [] 

military influence or persuasion,” 420 U.S. at 758 (citing

Noyd v. Bond, 395 U.S. 683, 694-95 (1969)). Compare 10 

U.S.C. § 950g(d), with id. § 866(c). 

The similarity of the two systems’ review mechanisms 

strongly suggests that, if the review procedure for courtsmartial is considered adequate to protect defendants’ rights, 

the same should be true of the review procedure for military 

commissions. Indeed, in one sense the review structure for 

military commissions is more insulated from military 

influence than is the structure for courts-martial. The judges 

on our court, unlike those on the Court of Appeals for the 

Armed Forces, enjoy Article III’s guarantees of life tenure 

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23

and salary protection, further assuring that our review is not 

swayed by political pressures. See Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 675-

76 (Scalia, J., dissenting). 

We do not overlook the fact that although the review 

structures are virtually identical, the evidentiary and 

procedural rules in a military-commission trial differ in some 

regards from those in courts-martial. Even so, Al-Nashiri’s 

trial before a military commission will include a number of 

significant procedural and evidentiary safeguards. Among 

other things, he will have the right to be represented by 

counsel, 10 U.S.C. § 949c, be presumed innocent, id. § 949l, 

obtain and offer exculpatory evidence, id. § 949j, call 

witnesses on his behalf, id., and challenge for cause any of the 

members of the military commission and the military judge, 

id. § 949f. In fact, Al-Nashiri does not argue before us that 

any evidentiary or procedural defects will prevent the military 

commission and various appellate bodies from fully 

adjudicating his defense that his conduct occurred outside the 

context of hostilities. Cf. JMM Corp., 378 F.3d at 1127 (“For 

Younger abstention to be appropriate in the face of pending 

state proceedings, the federal plaintiff must ‘have a full and 

fair opportunity to litigate’ its constitutional claims in those 

proceedings.” (quoting Ohio Civil Rights Comm’n, 477 U.S.

at 627)). We therefore conclude that, at least where a 

defendant identifies no such defect, the MCA’s “integrated 

system of military courts and review procedures,”

Councilman, 420 U.S. at 758, is sufficiently adequate to point 

in favor of abstention. 

Al-Nashiri argues against this conclusion by identifying 

various features of military commissions that, in his view, 

suggest that they are deficient as compared to the courtmartial system. According to Al-Nashiri, the commissions 

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24

established by the MCA lack the established track record that 

courts-martial had at the time of Councilman. He also points 

to two instances in which our court overturned militarycommission judgments on appeal. But Al-Nashiri does not 

argue that these features render military commissions 

unlawful or will prevent him from presenting a full defense. 

Instead, by pointing to these alleged shortcomings, Al-Nashiri 

asks us to do what the Supreme Court notably did not do in 

Councilman: determine whether pretrial intervention is 

warranted by examining the on-the-ground performance of 

the system that Congress and the Executive have established.

See 420 U.S. at 758 (“[I]mplicit in the congressional scheme 

embodied in the [UCMJ] is the view that the military court 

system generally is adequate to and responsibly will perform 

its assigned task. We think this congressional judgment must 

be respected and that it must be assumed that the military 

court system will vindicate servicemen’s constitutional 

rights.” (emphases added)). In the absence of any claim that 

the shortcomings to which Al-Nashiri points render the 

congressional scheme unlawful or will prevent Al-Nashiri 

from fully defending himself, the district court did not err in 

deeming that scheme adequate. 

iv

We next ask whether an “important countervailing 

interest” permits a federal court to decline to adjudicate a 

defendant’s pretrial claim that a military commission lacks 

subject matter jurisdiction to try his offense. It does. By 

providing for direct Article III review of Al-Nashiri’s 

jurisdictional challenge on appeal from any conviction in the 

military system, Congress and the President implicitly 

instructed that judicial review should not take place before 

that system has completed its work. And where this judgment 

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25

was made out of concern for national security needs—an 

arena in which the political branches receive wide 

deference—we must follow their directive. We turn now to 

examining the vital interest we identify: the need for federal 

courts to avoid exercising their equitable powers in a manner 

that would unduly impinge on the prerogatives of the political 

branches in the sensitive realm of national security.5 Comity

demands restraint in such circumstances, just as it requires 

federal courts to avoid interfering with the functions of states

and the military. See, e.g., Wash. Research Project, Inc. v. 

Dep’t of Health, Educ. & Welfare, 504 F.2d 238, 253 (D.C. 

Cir. 1974) (“Considerations of inter-branch comity impel us 

to withhold coercive orders that are not demonstrably 

necessary.” (emphasis added)). 

Congress—with the approval of two Presidents—

exercised its legitimate prerogatives when it decided, in 

response to Hamdan, that the ordinary federal court process 

was not suitable for trying certain enemy belligerents. 

Therefore, Congress crafted a separate scheme under which 

 5 Habeas corpus “is, at its core, an equitable remedy,” Schlup 

v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 319 (1995), as is the injunctive and 

declaratory relief that Al-Nashiri’s habeas petition requests, see 

Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 72 (1971). Thus, like the Court in 

Councilman, the district court here faced the question whether to 

exercise its equitable jurisdiction to intervene in a pending criminal 

prosecution. We assume that the form of relief Al-Nashiri seeks—a 

writ of habeas corpus—does not affect our analysis of the interests 

justifying abstention, and Al-Nashiri does not argue otherwise. Cf. 

In re Justices of the Superior Court Dep’t of the Mass. Trial Court, 

218 F.3d 11, 17-18 (1st Cir. 2000) (collecting cases for the 

principle that “the federal courts have routinely rejected petitions 

for pretrial habeas relief” on Younger grounds, even though 

Younger dealt with a motion for injunctive relief). 

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they would be tried and potentially convicted. Longstanding 

historical practice supports trying such enemy belligerents by

military commission, see, e.g., Quirin, 317 U.S. at 28-29, and 

the scheme Congress crafted in the MCA contains substantial 

additional protections as compared to the commissions used 

in past conflicts. One key difference, as we have explained, is 

that the MCA allows defendants an appeal as of right to our 

court. Article III courts therefore play a far more robust role 

in overseeing the actions of modern military commissions 

than they did in the past. See, e.g., Johnson v. Eisentrager, 

339 U.S. 763, 787 (1950) (“Correction of [military 

commissions’] errors of decision is not for the courts but for 

the military authorities which are alone authorized to review 

their decisions.” (quoting In re Yamashita, 327 U.S. 1, 8 

(1946))). They also play a much larger part than they do in the 

review structure for courts-martial, which provides no appeal

as of right to an Article III court.

Crucially, while the scheme Congress created in the 

MCA incorporates Article III review, it also delays it until a 

specific point. Before an Article III appellate court may step 

in, a defendant must first be tried and convicted in the military 

system, the convening authority must have approved the 

conviction, and the defendant must appeal the conviction to 

the CMCR or affirmatively waive his right to do so. 

Ordinarily, when Congress instructs that adjudication of 

certain types of cases should begin in specialized, non-Article 

III tribunals and end with review in an Article III court, we 

suppose that Congress intended for litigants to proceed 

exclusively through that scheme. See City of Rochester v. 

Bond, 603 F.2d 927, 931 (D.C. Cir. 1979). In other words, by 

providing for Article III involvement at a particular point, 

Congress “implicitly” signals that Article III courts should get 

involved no sooner. Jarkesy, 803 F.3d at 15. Litigants may 

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not ordinarily seek to prevent the proper operation of the 

congressional scheme by pursuing equitable relief in district 

court. 

We are particularly confident that Congress did not 

intend to allow a defendant to halt the workings of a military 

commission by challenging in federal court an issue that 

could just as easily be considered by the commission and 

reviewed by a federal appellate court: the commission’s own 

subject matter jurisdiction. The structure of the MCA makes 

this clear. For starters, the MCA explicitly empowers military 

commissions to make findings sufficient to determine their 

own jurisdiction, see 10 U.S.C. § 948d, and permits a 

presiding military judge to “hear[] and determin[e] motions 

raising defenses or objections which are capable of 

determination without trial of the issues” bearing on guilt or 

innocence, id. § 949d. These provisions suggest “[b]y 

implication” that jurisdictional challenges are not ordinarily to 

be raised pretrial in district court. Deaver, 822 F.2d at 70; cf. 

id. at 69-70 (explaining that the existence of a procedure 

allowing defendants to move to dismiss an indictment pretrial 

suggests that defendants may not mount a collateral equitable 

challenge to the indictment on the same ground). 

Moreover, a military judge’s order denying a motion to 

dismiss charges on jurisdictional grounds cannot be appealed 

to us until after final judgment. See Khadr v. United States, 

529 F.3d 1112, 1114-15 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Our court has 

“exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of a final 

judgment rendered by a military commission,” as approved by 

the convening authority, once “all other appeals under this 

chapter have been waived or exhausted.” 10 U.S.C. 

§ 950g(a)-(b). An order denying a motion to dismiss charges 

is not a “final judgment” under 10 U.S.C. § 950g(a), not least 

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because it has not been approved by the convening authority. 

See Khadr, 529 F.3d at 1115-16. District courts would 

“undermine the final judgment rule” laid out by Congress 

were they routinely to entertain motions for equitable relief of 

the sort Al-Nashiri seeks, “with [their] attendant rights of 

appeal.” Deaver, 822 F.2d at 71.

Heeding the political branches’ instruction as to the 

timing of Article III review qualifies as an “important 

countervailing interest” warranting abstention, at least where 

that instruction is based on those branches’ assessment of 

national security needs. In the realm of national security, the 

expertise of the political branches is at its apogee. See Hamdi 

v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 531 (2004) (plurality opinion) 

(“Without doubt, our Constitution recognizes that core 

strategic matters of warmaking belong in the hands of those 

who are best positioned and most politically accountable for 

making them.”); Al-Bihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 866, 875 

(D.C. Cir. 2010) (noting “the wide deference the judiciary is 

obliged to give to the democratic branches with regard to 

questions concerning national security”); Hamad v. Gates, 

732 F.3d 990, 1006 (9th Cir. 2013) (“Congress’s decisions 

with respect to [Guantanamo] detainees are at the core of 

Congress’s authority with respect to ‘the conduct of foreign 

relations [and] the war power.’” (quoting Mathews v. Diaz, 

426 U.S. 67, 81 n.17 (1976))). Acting on the guidance set out 

in Hamdan, the President sought authority for the militarycommission trials that “he believe[d] necessary,” 548 U.S. at 

636 (Breyer, J., concurring), and Congress gave it to him, 

deciding in the process that Article III courts should not step 

in before the military system has issued a final decision. The 

district court did not err by declining to disturb this joint 

determination.

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Al-Nashiri and amici raise several counterarguments, 

asserting that the interests supporting abstention in the 

military-commission context are less significant than those in 

the court-martial context. Al-Nashiri contends initially that 

Councilman does not apply because he is not a service 

member; and, as the dissent likewise points out, concerns of 

military discipline are therefore inapplicable. True enough. 

But nothing in the Supreme Court’s case law requires the 

interests justifying the district court’s decision to be identical 

to those in Councilman; it is enough that they are “equally 

compelling.” Councilman, 420 U.S. at 757; see also Hamdan, 

548 U.S. at 589. To require identical interests would be to 

suggest that abstention principles developed in the context of

criminal proceedings in one forum can never be extended to 

another. But this cannot be correct. Indeed, Councilman itself 

was an outgrowth of Younger abstention, which dealt with 

ongoing criminal proceedings in state courts and had nothing 

to do with military discipline.

To be sure, the Court in Hamdan did not consider 

interests other than military discipline in determining that it 

would hear the habeas petition before it. It noted simply that 

Hamdan was not a member of the Armed Forces, and that 

concerns of military discipline therefore did not apply. But the 

Court did not hold that abstention is appropriate only where 

concerns of military discipline are present. To the contrary, it 

left open the possibility that some other “important 

countervailing interest” might justify abstention in a future 

case. Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 589 (quoting Quackenbush, 517 

U.S. at 716). The Court had no occasion in Hamdan to 

consider whether the vital interest we have identified here 

would point in favor of abstention, because Congress had not 

specifically authorized Hamdan’s military commission—

much less incorporated Article III courts into the applicable 

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review scheme. Indeed, the Supreme Court in Hamdan 

expressly declined to consider whether Congress’s provision 

of “limited” Article III review in the Detainee Treatment Act 

of 2005 pointed in favor of abstention, because Hamdan had 

no right to such review under that Act. Id. at 588 n.19. That 

Hamdan did not consider interests other than military 

discipline, therefore, does not preclude us from doing so. 

Al-Nashiri and amici further assert that abstention applies 

only to court systems that are wholly separate from the federal 

judicial establishment. They note that decisions of courtsmartial and state courts are not directly reviewed by federal 

courts; moreover, these alternative judicial systems have a 

long history of operating undisturbed by federal intervention. 

Therefore, they argue, while the Court in Councilman was 

concerned with Article III courts intruding where they as a 

whole had no place, no similar concern is at play here, where 

Congress built Article III courts into the review mechanism. 

Comity interests are not implicated by such a structure, 

according to Al-Nashiri and amici.

Our role in reviewing military-commission convictions 

does, of course, distinguish the MCA’s review structure from 

that of state courts and courts-martial. But this distinction 

points away from pretrial intervention rather than toward it. 

For starters, while courts often invoke the term “comity” to 

refer to respect for separate judicial systems such as state 

courts, the term is more capacious than that. As we have 

explained, we have invoked inter-branch comity to avoid 

exercising our equitable discretion to interfere with the 

prerogatives of coordinate branches of government. Comity 

can also justify a district court’s discretionary decision to 

“transfer, stay, or dismiss a case that is duplicative of a case 

filed in another federal [district] court,” even though both 

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courts are part of the same judicial system. Federal-Comity 

Doctrine, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (10th ed. 2014); see, 

e.g., Pacesetter Sys., Inc. v. Medtronic, Inc., 678 F.2d 93, 94-

95 (9th Cir. 1982).

Moreover, the eventual involvement of an Article III 

appellate court lessens the need for immediate intervention 

because an Article III court can remedy any errors on appeal. 

Indeed, before cases like Younger and Councilman, the 

traditional rule that equity should not interfere with a criminal 

prosecution generally applied only to cases in which a 

defendant had an adequate non-equitable remedy in a federal 

court. See Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 441 (1977) 

(explaining that “the existence of an adequate remedy at law 

barring equitable relief normally would be determined by 

inquiring into the remedies available in the federal rather than 

in the state courts,” but Younger “broadened” the inquiry “to 

focus on the remedies available in the pending state 

proceeding”). If the availability of legal remedies in Article 

III courts has historically barred criminal defendants from 

receiving pretrial equitable relief, we do not see why in this 

case the availability of such remedies would counsel in favor 

of permitting pretrial relief. 

Al-Nashiri and the dissent also contend that the military 

possesses no special expertise in addressing questions related 

to the laws of war. Thus, both argue, while part of the reason 

for abstaining in Councilman was to defer to the military’s 

expertise in handling criminal matters connected to military 

service, no similar interest exists here. We are not convinced. 

For one thing, Councilman set out a rule that applies 

broadly—even to those claims that implicate military 

expertise to a lesser degree. See Solorio, 483 U.S. at 436-37 

(holding that courts-martial may try service members even for 

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crimes unrelated to their military service). For another,

Councilman suggested that expertise can be built over time; 

thus, the relative novelty of the military commissions need not 

necessarily count against them. See 420 U.S. at 758 (noting 

that the civilian judges who reviewed court-martial 

convictions “would gain over time thorough familiarity with 

military problems”). And finally, Councilman cited military 

expertise as just one of several practical benefits of 

abstention. In addition to serving the needs of the military, 

avoiding pretrial intervention also eliminates “duplicative 

proceedings,” potentially “obviate[s] the need for judicial 

intervention,” and “inform[s] and narrow[s]” eventual Article 

III review. Id. at 756-58. These advantages apply in full force

here. 

As in Councilman, then, an important countervailing 

interest supported the district court’s decision to abstain from 

hearing Al-Nashiri’s petition.6

B

Having determined that the district court applied the 

proper legal standard when it decided that it could abstain in 

 6 By holding that an important countervailing interest justified 

the decision to abstain in this case, we do not suggest that a district 

court may always abstain from exercising its equitable jurisdiction 

simply because it perceives that some important interest would be 

advanced by staying its hand. As the Supreme Court has made 

clear, abstention is appropriate outside the criminal context only in 

certain enumerated circumstances. See Sprint Commc’ns, Inc. v. 

Jacobs, 134 S. Ct. 584, 593 (2013) (holding that Younger 

abstention does not extend to state civil proceedings merely 

because they implicate “important state interests” and provide an 

“adequate opportunity to raise [federal] challenges”).

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favor of ongoing military-commission proceedings, we next 

examine whether its ultimate decision to abstain was 

appropriate, in light of any features unique to Al-Nashiri’s 

case. Al-Nashiri advances three arguments for why abstention 

was inappropriate here; none has merit. 

i

The Supreme Court has instructed that federal courts can 

intervene in ongoing criminal proceedings in a few narrow 

and limited circumstances. In particular, a federal court may 

intervene where a plaintiff shows that “extraordinary 

circumstances” both present the threat of “great and 

immediate” injury and render the alternative tribunal 

“incapable of fairly and fully adjudicating the federal issues 

before it.” Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 123-24 (1975) 

(quoting Younger, 401 U.S. at 45, 53); see also Huffman v. 

Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 601 (1975) (“[A] movant must 

show not merely the ‘irreparable injury’ which is a normal 

prerequisite for an injunction, but also must show that the 

injury would be ‘great and immediate.’” (quoting Younger, 

401 U.S. at 46)). Al-Nashiri contends that this exception to 

abstention obligated the district court to intervene in his case 

because his proceeding before the military commission will 

cause him irreparable psychological harm and will require 

him to divulge his defense in advance of a possible retrial in 

federal district court. These harms, he asserts, amount to the 

sort of “great and immediate” irreparable injury that the Court 

has recognized could support a federal court’s decision not to 

abstain in his particular case. Councilman, 420 U.S. at 756

(quoting Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U.S. 240, 243 (1926)).

Al-Nashiri’s argument is foreclosed by the Supreme 

Court’s definition of what constitutes “great, immediate, and 

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irreparable” injury justifying a federal court’s intervention in 

ongoing criminal proceedings. Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 

433 (1979); see also Councilman, 420 U.S. at 756. As the 

Court explained in Councilman, “certain types of injury, in 

particular, the cost, anxiety, and inconvenience of having to 

defend against a single criminal prosecution, [cannot] by 

themselves be considered ‘irreparable’ in the special legal 

sense of that term.” 420 U.S. at 755 (quoting Younger, 401 

U.S. at 46). Instead, abstention is appropriate where a plaintiff 

“can show no harm other than that attendant to resolution of 

his case in the military court system,” even though those 

harms are “often of serious proportions.” Id. at 754, 758; see 

also McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U.S. 21, 33 (1975)

(holding that avoiding the possibility of erroneous 

incarceration throughout a court-martial proceeding does not 

qualify as “irreparable injury” for purposes of abstention). Put 

simply, Al-Nashiri’s alleged harms are “attendant to 

resolution of his case in the military court system” and, as a 

result, do not render abstention inappropriate here. 

Councilman, 420 U.S. at 758.

Moreover, even setting this clear proscription aside, the 

dissent’s argument that Al-Nashiri’s case could qualify for the 

“extraordinary circumstances” exception is unavailing. 

Focusing on the word “extraordinary,” the dissent makes a 

sympathetic case that Al-Nashiri’s harms are different in both 

kind and magnitude from those that he would experience in a 

federal court or from the harms experienced by the average 

criminal defendant. But that alone does not bring those harms 

under the limited and narrow meaning of the exception. 

Although the dissent may be correct that Councilman itself 

had “no occasion to attempt to define those circumstances” 

that might be sufficiently extraordinary to warrant abstention, 

420 U.S. at 761, several subsequent cases have clarified the 

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35

scope of this exception. See Kugler, 421 U.S. at 124; Trainor 

v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 441-42, 442 n.7 (1977); Moore, 

442 U.S. at 433. For a plaintiff to come within the exception, 

he must show both that he will suffer a “great and immediate” 

harm absent federal-court intervention and that the alternative 

tribunal is “incapable of fairly and fully adjudicating the 

federal issues before it.” Kugler, 421 U.S. at 123-24. AlNashiri’s allegations regarding his treatment during his 

detention, while deeply troubling, do not provide any reason 

to fear that he will not be given a fair hearing in the military 

commission. See id. at 124. Instead, Al-Nashiri’s allegations 

are about his particular vulnerabilities to a trial by a military 

commission at Guantanamo Bay. Because they say nothing 

about the competence of the military commission itself, those 

harms do not meet the requirements of the “extraordinary 

circumstances” exception.

The dissent responds that we need not feel bound by this

precedent because Al-Nashiri’s case is different. The cases 

defining the “extraordinary circumstances” exception arose in 

the context of Younger abstention, not abstention in favor of 

courts-martial or military commissions, and therefore, the 

dissent contends, the definition of extraordinary 

circumstances articulated in the Younger cases does not apply 

in the military context.

7 But Councilman is not as far removed 

 7 According to the dissent, Councilman’s exception to 

abstention for “personal jurisdiction” challenges shows that we may 

consider other factors that the Supreme Court has not yet identified.

But it is not clear that Councilman’s “personal jurisdiction” 

exception is unique to courts-martial, as the dissent suggests. 

Councilman grounded that exception in a right not to be tried, see 

420 U.S. at 759, which courts have recognized in other contexts as 

an “extraordinary circumstance” under Younger. See Gilliam v. 

Foster, 75 F.3d 881, 904 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc) (holding that 

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36

from Younger as the dissent suggests. As we explained above, 

Councilman’s abstention discussion is based on the same 

principles underlying Younger. See Councilman, 420 U.S. at 

757 (determining that Younger principles “apply in equal 

measure to the balance governing the propriety of equitable 

intervention in pending court-martial proceedings”).

Accordingly, other circuits have concluded that Councilman 

is simply an application of the Younger doctrine to the courtsmartial context. McCune v. Frank, 521 F.2d 1152, 1157 (2d 

Cir. 1975) (“Younger is not limited to criminal proceedings.” 

(citing Councilman)); Bowman v. Wilson, 672 F.2d 1145, 

1156-59 (3d Cir. 1982); Lawrence v. McCarthy, 344 F.3d 

467, 470 (5th Cir. 2003) (“The Supreme Court has since 

applied Younger-abstention in various other contexts, 

including that of Schlesinger v. Councilman . . . .”); Hennis v. 

Hemlick, 666 F.3d 270, 274 n.5 (4th Cir. 2012) (“[T]he 

Supreme Court extended Younger abstention to restrict 

federal court intervention into on-going court-martial 

proceedings.”). In following the lead of Younger and 

Councilman here, we heed the Court’s guidance that the 

exceptions it has crafted to abstention in favor of an ongoing 

criminal proceeding are narrow. See Huffman, 420 U.S. at 602 

(describing the “traditional narrow exceptions” to abstention 

doctrine). What the dissent proposes would redefine the scope 

of the “extraordinary circumstances” exception and create a 

novel free-floating exception for psychological harms. Such 

an approach belies the Court’s past treatment of the 

exceptions to abstention, and, as a result, we will not expand 

the “extraordinary circumstances” exception to include

 

Younger abstention did not apply where plaintiff alleged potential 

Double Jeopardy Clause violations because “a portion of the 

constitutional protection [the Clause] affords would be irreparably 

lost if Petitioners were forced to endure the second trial before 

seeking to vindicate their constitutional rights at the federal level”).

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37

psychological harms that do not implicate the fairness of the 

military-commission proceedings.

Before moving on to Al-Nashiri’s other arguments, we 

again emphasize that Al-Nashiri’s sole claim in this appeal 

relates to whether the district court erred in declining to hear 

his challenge to the military commission’s subject matter 

jurisdiction. Al-Nashiri does not argue that Congress 

exceeded its constitutional authority in creating the militarycommission system under the MCA or in defining “alien 

unprivileged enemy belligerent” in a manner that includes

him. Nor, to repeat, does he contend that any procedures of 

the system Congress created in the MCA are unconstitutional 

or will prevent him from fully litigating his jurisdictional 

defense. He also makes no claim that delaying habeas review

in his case amounts to an unlawful suspension of the writ. 

This is perhaps because the Supreme Court has explained in 

the court-martial context that “a deferment of resort to the 

writ until other corrective procedures are shown to be futile” 

is “in no sense a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.” 

Gusik v. Schilder, 340 U.S. 128, 132 (1950).8 Indeed, Al-

 8 We take no stance on whether abstention could amount to a 

suspension of the writ, as this issue is not properly before us. But 

we observe that federal courts routinely decline to allow claims that 

can be raised in pretrial motions and addressed on direct appeal to 

instead be raised via pretrial habeas petition, whether trial is set to 

take place in federal court, state court, or a court-martial. See, e.g.,

Henry v. Henkel, 235 U.S. 219, 229 (1914) (federal prosecution) 

(“[T]he hearing on habeas corpus is not in the nature of a writ of 

error nor is it intended as a substitute for the functions of the trial 

court. . . . [A defendant] cannot, in either case, anticipate the regular 

course of proceeding by alleging a want of jurisdiction and 

demanding a ruling thereon in habeas corpus proceedings.”); In re 

Justices of the Superior Court Dep’t of the Mass. Trial Court, 218 

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38

Nashiri does not dispute that the MCA provides substantial 

“other corrective procedures,” including the right to appeal a 

conviction to our court. Finally, to the extent that Al-Nashiri’s 

arguments regarding psychological harm challenge his 

treatment while in custody, nothing in our opinion forecloses 

him from challenging those conditions by filing a habeas 

petition in district court.

ii

Al-Nashiri next argues that post-trial Article III review 

will come too late to vindicate his constitutional and statutory 

“right not to be tried” by a military commission that lacks 

subject matter jurisdiction over his offenses. See Councilman, 

420 U.S. at 759. The district court’s decision to abstain 

violated this right not to be tried, he contends. And because 

this right will be lost at the moment his trial begins, he argues 

that appellate review in our court cannot vindicate it.

In support, he points to the text of the 2009 MCA, which 

provides that an offense “is triable by military commission 

under this chapter only if the offense is committed in the 

context of and associated with hostilities.” 10 U.S.C. 

§ 950p(c) (emphasis added). He asserts that the use of the 

word “triable” instead of “punishable” or “liable” suggests 

 

F.3d 11, 17-19 (1st Cir. 2000) (state prosecution) (“[T]he federal 

courts have routinely rejected petitions for pretrial habeas relief 

raising any variety of claims and issues. . . . Defendants are not 

entitled to consideration of their federal habeas claims until a time 

when federal jurisdiction will not seriously disrupt state judicial 

processes.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Dooley v. Ploger, 

491 F.2d 608, 610 (4th Cir. 1974) (court-martial prosecution) 

(“Before seeking [habeas] relief from a district court, [a defendant] 

must first exhaust his military remedies[.]”). 

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39

that Congress conferred a right not to be tried by a military 

commission at all, rather than merely a right not to be subject 

to a binding judgment by a commission. We understand his 

constitutional claim to assert something similar: the military 

commission has jurisdiction under Article I to try only war 

crimes, which by definition must have a nexus to hostilities.

Whether Al-Nashiri locates his alleged right not to be tried in 

the MCA or the Constitution, the crux of this “right” is that 

Al-Nashiri is entitled to an initial determination in an Article 

III court of whether his military commission has jurisdiction 

over his offense. We disagree.

Some statutory and constitutional provisions indeed 

provide express guarantees that trial will not occur. In such 

cases, trial itself creates an injury that cannot be remedied on 

appeal. But only a handful of such guarantees have been 

recognized. The key question, then, is whether there is any 

express statutory or constitutional language that gives AlNashiri a right not to be tried, instead of simply a right not to 

be subject to a binding judgment, should his alleged crimes 

have taken place outside the context of hostilities. As the 

Supreme Court has explained it:

There is a crucial distinction between a right not to be 

tried and a right whose remedy requires the dismissal of 

charges. A right not to be tried . . . rests upon an explicit 

statutory or constitutional guarantee that trial will not 

occur—as in the Double Jeopardy Clause (“nor shall any 

person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in 

jeopardy of life or limb”), or the Speech or Debate Clause 

(“[F]or any Speech or Debate in either House, [the 

Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in 

any other Place”).

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40

Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794, 801 

(1989) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The 

statutory language to which Al-Nashiri points might appear at 

first blush to create such an explicit guarantee: it describes 

when an offense is “triable” by military commission. 10 

U.S.C. § 950p(c) (“An offense specified in [the MCA] is 

triable by military commission . . . only if the offense is 

committed in the context of and associated with hostilities.”). 

But our case law demonstrates that the mere use of terms like 

“triable” does not transform a right not to be subject to a 

binding judgment into a right not to be tried.

Particularly instructive is our opinion in Khadr. There,

we held that an erroneous jurisdictional ruling against a 

defendant in the military-commission system can be 

adequately remedied on appeal from final judgment, despite 

statutory language in the MCA that might suggest a defendant 

was not triable by military commission. Khadr, 529 F.3d at 

1117-18. The presiding military judge in Khadr had 

determined that under the 2006 MCA, neither he nor the 

military commission’s members had the power to find the 

defendant an “unlawful” enemy combatant, as required for the 

military to have jurisdiction over the defendant. Id. at 1114.

The military judge therefore dismissed the charges for lack of 

jurisdiction. On appeal, the CMCR held that the military 

judge could make the necessary jurisdictional finding and 

remanded accordingly. Id. at 1115. The defendant petitioned 

for interlocutory review of the CMCR’s decision.

This court rejected the defendant’s petition, explaining 

that the CMCR’s “procedural decision, as well as any 

subsequent jurisdictional decision, will be reviewable if 

necessary following a final judgment.” Id. at 1118 (emphasis 

added). We explained that “the denial of a claim of lack of 

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41

jurisdiction is not an immediately appealable collateral order” 

as the jurisdictional provisions at issue created a “right not to 

be subject to a binding judgment,” not a right to be free from 

trial altogether. Id. (quoting Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 

U.S. 517, 527 (1988)). And the right not to be subject to a 

binding judgment “may be effectively vindicated following 

final judgment.” Id. (quoting Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U.S. at

527). Notably, Khadr dealt with language that could be read 

to suggest the existence of an express “right not to be tried.” 

See id. at 1114 (explaining that under the 2006 MCA, a 

military commission had “jurisdiction to try any offense made 

punishable by this chapter or the law of war when committed 

by an alien unlawful enemy combatant” (quoting former 10 

U.S.C. § 948d(a)) (emphasis added)). 

Our conclusion holds even if the military commission 

lacks subject matter jurisdiction not simply under the MCA, 

but instead under the Constitution. This much is apparent 

from Councilman. There, Councilman argued that his alleged 

offense was not constitutionally triable by court-martial 

because it was not “service connected.” Councilman, 420 

U.S. at 741-42; see also Solorio, 483 U.S. at 440-41

(explaining, in overruling the “service connection” rule, that 

the rule was a “constitutional principle” interpreting 

Congress’s power under Article I); O’Callahan, 395 U.S. at 

272-73 (justifying the “service connection” rule by reference 

to Article I and the limits set out by the Fifth and Sixth 

Amendments). And when the Supreme Court established the 

“service connection” rule, it spoke in terms of trial and not 

punishment. See O’Callahan, 395 U.S. at 274 (holding, in 

establishing the “service connection” rule, that “since 

petitioner’s crimes were not service connected, he could not 

be tried by court-martial but rather was entitled to trial by the 

civilian courts” (emphases added)). But the Court concluded 

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42

in Councilman that any “service connection” deficiency could 

be adequately remedied after trial. 420 U.S. at 754.

Al-Nashiri nevertheless gleans the existence of a 

constitutional “right not to be tried” from two cases in which 

the Supreme Court enjoined pending military trials: Reid v. 

Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), and Hamdan. In both Reid and 

Hamdan, the Supreme Court heard pretrial habeas petitions

and found that the tribunal at issue—a court-martial in Reid, a 

military commission in Hamdan—lacked the authority to 

proceed. But we cannot infer from the mere fact of 

intervention before trial that a constitutional “right not to be 

tried” exists, much less one that extends to Al-Nashiri. And 

Al-Nashiri points to no pronouncement in Reid or Hamdan

stating that a defendant has a right to have an Article III court 

determine in the first instance whether the military system has 

jurisdiction to try his offenses. 

Instead, taking Hamdan first, Al-Nashiri observes that 

according to a plurality of the Justices, “deficiencies in the 

time and place allegations” against Hamdan signaled that the 

“offense [alleged] is not triable by law-of-war military 

commission.” Pet’r’s Br. 45 (quoting Hamdan, 548 U.S. at

600 (plurality opinion)). Al-Nashiri apparently quotes this 

language to suggest that the reason the Court intervened 

pretrial was to vindicate a right not to be tried for offenses 

that were not “triable” by military commission. But the Court 

never said so. Instead, at other points in the opinion, a 

majority of the Court explained that it chose to intervene 

before the military commission issued a judgment because (1) 

no comity considerations justified abstaining under

Councilman; (2) Hamdan “ha[d] no automatic right” to

judicial review of the commission’s “final decision”; and (3) 

there was a strong reason to believe unlawful procedures 

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43

would actually be used in Hamdan’s trial, because they were 

“described with particularity” in a presidential order and 

“implementation of some of them ha[d] already occurred.” 

Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 616. In other words, the Court 

intervened because Article III appellate review was not 

available and no compelling considerations counseled in favor 

of awaiting the military commission’s judgment.

Al-Nashiri is correct, however, that Reid and similar 

cases suggest abstention is inappropriate where individuals 

raise “substantial arguments denying the right of the military 

to try them at all,” and “the legal challenge turns on the status 

of the persons as to whom the military asserted its power”—

that is, where “there is a substantial question whether a 

military tribunal has personal jurisdiction over the defendant.”

Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 585 n.16 (citing United States ex rel. 

Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11 (1955) (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). The precise contours of this “status” exception are 

unclear, but the Supreme Court has offered two examples of 

challenges that may come within its scope. First, where the 

military attempts to court-martial a defendant who is 

“undisputed[ly]” a civilian, the Court has intervened to 

prevent trial. New v. Cohen, 129 F.3d 639, 644 (D.C. Cir. 

1997); see also Councilman, 420 U.S. at 759 (citing Toth, 

Reid, and McElroy v. United States ex rel. Guagliardo, 361 

U.S. 281 (1960)). In these cases, the “issue presented

concerned not only the military court’s jurisdiction, but also 

whether under Art. I Congress could allow the military to 

interfere with the liberty of civilians even for the limited 

purpose of forcing them to answer to the military justice 

system.” Councilman, 420 U.S. at 759. Requiring civilian

defendants to first proceed through the military system would

be “especially unfair” because of the “disruption caused to 

[their] civilian lives” and the accompanying “deprivation of 

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44

liberty.” Id. (quoting Noyd, 395 U.S. at 696 n.8). And second, 

the Hamdan Court suggested, in dicta, that the status 

exception might apply to Hamdan’s challenge, which alleged 

that his military commission was not “regularly constituted”

under the Geneva Conventions. An irregularly constituted 

court is “ultra vires” and therefore necessarily lacks personal 

jurisdiction over any defendant, the Court reasoned. Hamdan,

548 U.S. at 589 n.20.

Whatever the precise scope of this exception to 

abstention, it does not require that Al-Nashiri’s jurisdictional 

challenge first be heard by an Article III court. We do not 

understand Al-Nashiri to challenge his status as an alien 

unprivileged enemy belligerent who is subject to detention 

and to trial by military commission for certain types of 

conduct. Instead, he argues that the nature of his alleged 

offenses is such that the military lacks the authority to try 

them. His claim is therefore similar to that presented in 

Councilman, where the defendant did not challenge his status 

as a service member, but instead argued that the military 

could not try his offenses because they were not connected to 

his service in the Army. See 420 U.S. at 759-60. Like the 

Supreme Court in Councilman, then, we conclude that this 

type of claim does not fit within an exception to abstention. 

Nor does Al-Nashiri argue that the commissions created by 

the 2009 MCA generally lack jurisdiction over defendants 

because they are so procedurally deficient that they are 

wholly ultra vires. The district court therefore did not err in 

abstaining from deciding Al-Nashiri’s pretrial challenge to the 

commission’s subject matter jurisdiction.

We recognize that our court’s opinion in Hamdan spoke 

of the status exception in broad terms. See Hamdan v. 

Rumsfeld, 415 F.3d 33 (D.C. Cir. 2005), rev’d on other 

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45

grounds, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). We suggested that the “theory” 

behind this exception “is that setting aside the judgment after 

trial and conviction insufficiently redresses the defendant’s 

right not to be tried by a tribunal that has no jurisdiction.” Id.

at 36. But the Supreme Court’s subsequent opinion in 

Hamdan clarified that this exception to abstention applies to 

cases in which “the legal challenge turns on the status of the 

persons as to whom the military asserted its power.” 548 U.S. 

at 585 n.16 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Thus, despite the broad wording of our statement in 

Hamdan, we cannot conclude that the status exception covers

all non-trivial jurisdictional challenges that a militarycommission defendant might raise. Indeed, such a reading 

would conflict with Councilman, which allowed a courtmartial to go forward even though the defendant contested the 

tribunal’s jurisdiction to try the offense with which he was 

charged.

iii

Al-Nashiri also contends that intervention is required 

because his military-commission proceedings have been 

unreasonably delayed. He points to the provision of the MCA 

that eliminates the UCMJ’s speedy trial guarantee, see 10 

U.S.C. § 948b(d)(A), and notes that the government’s 

interlocutory appeals before the CMCR—and, as a result, his 

trial before the military commission—were stayed for nearly a 

year pending the confirmation of military judges to the 

CMCR. Al-Nashiri estimated in his briefing that trial will not 

commence until 2018 at the earliest. The government did not 

challenge this estimate at oral argument. Now that the 

CMCR’s stay has been lifted, the government has informed us 

that military-commission proceedings will resume in 

September 2016. Al-Nashiri’s counsel further estimated in 

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46

rebuttal at oral argument that appellate review in this court 

will not occur until 2024. He provided no information, 

however, to explain why so much time would pass between 

trial and appeal.

We need not decide whether an unreasonable delay in 

military-commission proceedings could come within an 

exception to abstention. Cf. Nissan Motor Corp. in USA v. 

Harding, 739 F.2d 1005, 1011 (5th Cir. 1984) (explaining that 

“excessive delay causing significant impairment of 

constitutional rights” can counsel against abstaining in favor 

of an ongoing state proceeding). Although the stay before the 

CMCR delayed the processing of the government’s 

interlocutory appeals—and therefore Al-Nashiri’s trial—for 

nearly a year, Al-Nashiri never opposed this postponement. 

Indeed, when the government asked the CMCR to lift this 

stay after the confirmation of two military judges to that 

tribunal in April 2016, Al-Nashiri moved to continue the stay. 

We decline to label unreasonable or excessive a delay that AlNashiri has not contested. Cf. Sirva Relocation, LLC v. Richie, 

794 F.3d 185, 196 (1st Cir. 2015) (noting that claims that a 

state proceeding is inadequate due to adjudicative delay are 

“undermine[d]” by a plaintiff’s “failure to pursue potentially 

available state judicial remedies”). Nor has Al-Nashiri 

explained why the delay caused by the government’s 

interlocutory appeals was unreasonable or excessive. In fact, 

it was Al-Nashiri himself who argued that, in accordance with 

the Rules for Military Commissions and “basic equity,” the 

military-commission proceedings should be stayed while the 

government pursued its interlocutory appeals. Order, United 

States v. Al-Nashiri, AE340J (Apr. 10, 2015).

To be clear, we are troubled by the estimate of AlNashiri’s counsel that appellate review in this court might not 

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47

occur until 2024. But counsel offered this prediction for the 

first time during rebuttal at oral argument, providing no 

information on the cause of this anticipated lag between trial 

and appeal to our court, and no opportunity for the 

government to respond. We are therefore not prepared at this 

juncture to forecast that any such delay will occur or be 

excessive as a matter of law. Should an unreasonable delay 

materialize, Al-Nashiri may pursue available remedies at that 

time.

Relatedly, Al-Nashiri suggests that where it is “plain” 

that the law of war does not apply, a district court should not 

abstain from adjudicating a military-commission defendant’s 

pretrial challenge, because requiring the defendant to first 

proceed through the military system “would serve no purpose 

other than delay.” Reply Br. 25 (quoting Strate v. A-1 

Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 459 n.14 (1997)). But, as we 

explain below in rejecting Al-Nashiri’s mandamus petition, 

there is nothing “plain[ly]” erroneous about applying the law 

of war here. As a result, we take no stance on whether pretrial 

intervention would be appropriate—or, indeed, required—in 

such a case. Rather, we simply hold that in this case, the 

district court was not required, as a matter of law, to 

intervene.

Moreover, because the district court did not err in 

abstaining, we reject Al-Nashiri’s arguments that the court 

was obligated to rule on the merits of his petition for 

preliminary injunctive relief and that it abused its discretion 

by issuing a stay that mooted the request for injunctive relief. 

Abstention permits a court to decline to reach the merits of a 

petitioner’s claim. “It would be illogical for a federal court to 

preliminarily enjoin a [parallel] court proceeding when it 

[will] abstain from reviewing [that] proceeding altogether.” 

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Phelps v. Hamilton, 122 F.3d 885, 891 (10th Cir. 1997).

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s treatment of AlNashiri’s request for injunctive relief.

III

We turn finally to Al-Nashiri’s mandamus petition. As 

we emphasized in rejecting his prior mandamus petition, 

mandamus is a “drastic remedy” that is appropriate only if 

three conditions are met. In re Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d 71, 78 

(D.C. Cir. 2015). First, the party seeking mandamus must 

have “no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires.” 

Id. (quoting Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 

367, 380 (2004)). Second, he must show that “his right to 

issuance of the writ is clear and indisputable.” Id. (quoting 

Cheney, 542 U.S. at 381). And even if the first two conditions 

are satisfied, the court must believe “the writ is appropriate 

under the circumstances.” Id. We deny Al-Nashiri’s petition 

because he has not met the high bar of showing a “clear and 

indisputable” right to issuance of the writ.

According to Al-Nashiri, it is “clear and indisputable” 

that his conduct did not take place in the context of hostilities, 

and therefore that he is entitled to mandamus relief. He 

contends that hostilities exist only when the political branches 

say so in a “contemporaneous public act”; the existence of 

hostilities cannot be determined after the fact. And in his 

view, no contemporaneous public act established that 

hostilities existed either before September 11, 2001, or in 

Yemen, where his alleged offenses took place. 

In fact, Al-Nashiri asserts, public acts at the time of his 

offenses suggested that America was at peace. He points to 

the President’s public statement, in response to the Cole 

bombing, that the nation was not at war. And while the 

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President reported to Congress under the War Powers 

Resolution that he had introduced forces “equipped for 

combat” into Yemen after the Cole attack, he did not report 

that he had introduced forces “into hostilities.” Compare 50 

U.S.C. § 1543(a)(1) (requiring the President to provide a 

written report to Congress if he introduces troops “into 

hostilities”), with id. § 1543(a)(3) (same if he introduces 

troops “in numbers which substantially enlarge United States 

Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a 

foreign nation”). Further, the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

led the investigation of the Cole bombing, treating it as a 

crime scene rather than a combat zone. In Al-Nashiri’s view, 

these facts suggest that the President did not believe 

“hostilities” existed around the time of the Cole bombing. 

The government responds that the existence of hostilities 

is established by looking not merely to the contemporaneous 

acts of the political branches, but to a totality of the 

circumstances, including al Qaeda’s conduct. Implicit in this 

argument is the notion that the existence of hostilities can be 

assessed after the fact, at trial. Applying this totality-of-thecircumstances standard, the government argues that the Cole 

attack was part of al Qaeda’s larger strategy to wage war 

against the United States, which culminated in the attacks of 

September 11. It notes that al Qaeda publicly declared jihad 

against the United States in 1996 and attacked the U.S. 

embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and that after these 

bombings, the President ordered missile strikes on al Qaeda 

training camps in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons 

facility in Sudan, and invoked the right to self-defense under 

the United Nations Charter. The government also points to the 

MCA, which authorizes military commission jurisdiction for 

conduct occurring “before, on, or after” September 11, 2001. 

See 10 U.S.C. § 948d. To the government, this language 

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suggests that Congress believed hostilities existed before 

September 11, even if no public act was taken until the 

passage of the AUMF on September 14, 2001. 

The disagreement between the parties thus boils down to 

two central questions: Should the existence of hostilities be 

determined based on the totality of the circumstances, or only 

on the understanding of the political branches? And may it be 

based on a retrospective analysis, or only on what 

decisionmakers believed at the time of the events? Al-Nashiri 

and amici believe the judgments of the political branches at 

the time are what matters; the government takes a broader 

view. 

Whatever the answers to these questions, they are not 

clear and indisputable, as the Supreme Court’s opinions in 

Hamdan make clear. There, a four-Justice plurality suggested 

that the conflict against al Qaeda began only after September 

11, 2001, and the enactment of the AUMF. Hamdan v. 

Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 598-600 & n.31 (plurality opinion) 

(questioning the legality of a charge encompassing acts from 

1996 until 2001, since “the offense alleged must have been 

committed both in a theater of war and during, not before, the 

relevant conflict,” id. at 600). The plurality may therefore 

have believed that some kind of contemporaneous public act 

of the political branches is needed to establish hostilities, 

although it did not expressly say so.

By contrast, in a dissent for three members of the Court, 

Justice Thomas argued that the judiciary cannot “secondguess” the Executive Branch’s view expressed in its charging 

documents that an accused acted within the context of an 

armed conflict. Id. at 684 (Thomas, J., dissenting). He further 

contended that the Executive’s “determination that the present 

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51

conflict dates at least to 1996 is supported by overwhelming 

evidence.” Id. at 687. In support, Justice Thomas cited much 

of the same evidence that the government relies upon here, 

including the 1996 declaration of jihad against the United 

States and the 1998 embassy bombings. See id. at 687-88. The 

dissenting opinion therefore implies that a contemporaneous 

public act is not needed: al Qaeda’s actions, rather than only

those of our political branches, could be considered in 

determining when hostilities began. Id. at 685, 687-88. Justice 

Thomas’s argument that the Executive could determine when 

hostilities began in its charging documents is also inconsistent 

with the view that a contemporaneous act is needed.9

The debate in Hamdan indicates that whether hostilities 

against al Qaeda existed at the time of Al-Nashiri’s alleged 

offenses, and whether Al-Nashiri’s conduct in Yemen took 

place in the context of those hostilities, are open questions. 

And open questions are “the antithesis of the ‘clear and 

indisputable’ right needed for mandamus relief.” Al-Nashiri,

791 F.3d at 86.

The authority Al-Nashiri cites does not clear up this 

uncertainty. He points to cases emphasizing that the 

determination of when hostilities end is left to the political 

branches. See Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160, 170 (1948); 

Al-Bihani v. Obama, 590 F.3d 866, 874 (D.C. Cir. 2010).

 9 The Hamdan dissent’s suggestion that courts cannot question 

the Executive’s charging documents also puts to rest Al-Nashiri’s 

argument that the military judge acted in a clearly unlawful manner 

when it denied Al-Nashiri’s motion to dismiss by, in part, deferring 

to the Executive Branch’s determination that Al-Nashiri’s conduct 

occurred in the context of hostilities. “Even if we ultimately agreed 

with [A]l-Nashiri on the merits,” the military judge’s decision was 

not clearly and indisputably erroneous. Al-Nashiri, 791 F.3d at 86.

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52

These cases do not, however, clearly establish that this 

political determination must be made in the form of a “public 

act” such as a proclamation or report to Congress. Nor do 

these cases speak directly to when hostilities begin. AlNashiri also relies on The Protector, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 700 

(1871), which explained that it was “necessary . . . to refer to 

some public act of the political departments of the 

government to fix the dates” of the Civil War. Id. at 702; see 

also Masterson v. Howard, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 99, 105 (1873) 

(citing The Protector). But The Protector spoke only of the 

Civil War, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) at 700; it did not purport to lay 

down a rule to govern future conflicts. As the Supreme Court 

later held, the terms “at war” and “at peace” may change 

meanings across contexts. Lee v. Madigan, 358 U.S. 228, 231 

(1959). The Protector’s reliance on a “public act” is therefore 

not clearly and indisputably applicable here. As a result, it 

cannot be grounds for mandamus relief. 

Because Al-Nashiri cannot show that his conduct clearly 

and indisputably took place outside the context of hostilities,

we deny his petition for mandamus relief. 

IV

We deny Al-Nashiri’s petition for a writ of mandamus 

and affirm the district court’s denial of his motion for a 

preliminary injunction.

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TATEL, Circuit Judge, dissenting: Since July 2011, Abd 

Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri has repeatedly 

sought to challenge the government’s authority to try him in a

military commission. In his view, none of the offenses with 

which he is charged occurred in the context of an armed 

conflict and thus none is triable outside of a civilian court. In 

one of his latest attempts to raise the issue, Al-Nashiri 

petitioned the district court for a writ of habeas corpus. That

court ultimately concluded that it was required to stay its hand 

under Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U.S. 738 (1975), a case 

in which the Supreme Court held that equity and inter-branch 

comity considerations generally require that federal courts 

refrain from interfering in ongoing court-martial proceedings 

against American military personnel.

Whether Councilman’s abstention doctrine should be 

extended to the military commission context to postpone

consideration of a Guantanamo detainee’s habeas claim 

presents a difficult question. In his opinion for the court, 

Judge Griffith makes a strong case that, as a matter of interbranch comity, federal courts should respect Congress’s 

judgment that Article III review of military commission

decisions generally occurs only after the military proceedings 

have run their course—that is, only after final convictions are 

rendered and affirmed by military authorities. In my view,

however, material differences between criminal prosecutions 

of non-servicemembers in military commissions and criminal 

prosecutions of servicemembers in courts-martial lessen the 

force of the comity and practical considerations that lie at the 

heart of cases like Councilman, thus significantly 

undermining the case for abstention. 

For instance, one of the primary considerations—perhaps

the primary consideration—underlying Councilman’s 

abstention doctrine is the importance of avoiding judicial 

interference in the military’s unique relationship with its 

servicemembers, which rests on laws and traditions having no

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2

counterpart in civilian life and in which the military has 

singularly relevant expertise. See id. at 757, 759–60; see also, 

e.g., Burns v. Wilson, 346 U.S. 137, 140 (1953) (plurality 

opinion) (“[T]he rights of men in the armed forces must 

perforce be conditioned to meet certain overriding demands of 

discipline and duty, and the civil courts are not the agencies 

which must determine the precise balance to be struck in this 

adjustment.”). By contrast, judicial consideration of habeas 

claims related to ongoing military commission proceedings

against alien unprivileged enemy belligerents for alleged 

violations of the laws of war threatens no similar relationship 

and implicates no similar expertise. Indeed, military 

commissions are primarily called upon to address questions 

about the laws of war, a body of international law hardly 

foreign to federal courts, see, e.g., United States v. 

Hamidullin, 114 F. Supp. 3d 365 (E.D. Va. 2015) (addressing 

whether a defendant was entitled to combatant immunity 

under the laws of war); United States v. Lindh, 212 F. Supp. 

2d 541, 552–53 (E.D. Va. 2002) (same); 18 U.S.C. § 2441 

(penalizing war crimes), and questions about the 

constitutional constraints on military commissions, an area in 

which Article III courts, not military courts, are especially

expert, see, e.g., Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 132 S. Ct. 1421, 1427–

28 (2012) (“At least since Marbury v. Madison, we have 

recognized that . . . it is emphatically the province and duty of 

the judicial department to say what the law is.” (internal 

quotation marks, citation, and alteration omitted)). 

Significant structural differences between the military 

commission system at issue here and the court-martial system 

at issue in Councilman further tilt the scales against 

abstention. For example, in contrast to the court-martial 

system at issue in Councilman, which has existed since 1950

and which is used in both times of war and times of peace, the 

present military commission system is temporary and may be 

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3

utilized only so long as necessary to try those who commit 

law-of-war offenses during the United States’ current conflict 

with al Qaeda and its associated forces, see Hamdan v. 

Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557, 597–98 (2006) (plurality opinion)

(recognizing as a precondition of military commission 

jurisdiction that an unlawful enemy combatant be charged 

with an offense that occurred during the period of hostilities); 

id. at 683–84 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (same). The notion that 

federal courts should delay exercising their habeas

jurisdiction out of respect for a system of rarely used and

temporary tribunals strikes me as rather odd.

There are, moreover, strong countervailing reasons for 

giving habeas claims related to military commissions prompt 

consideration. Most notably, as the last decade and a half has 

demonstrated, there is little jurisprudence regarding military 

commissions and their authority. See, e.g., Order, Al Bahlul v. 

United States, No. 11-1324 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 25, 2015) 

(granting rehearing en banc to consider, inter alia, whether 

the Constitution’s Define and Punish Clause empowers 

Congress to define inchoate conspiracy as a law-of-war 

offense subject to trial by military commission); Al Bahlul v. 

United States, 767 F.3d 1, 18 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (en banc) 

(recognizing it is an open question whether the Constitution’s 

Ex Post Facto Clause applies to military commission cases at 

Guantanamo); Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 613 (holding the military 

commission procedures established by an executive order 

invalid). Given that “[t]rial by military commission raises 

separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order,” Hamdan, 

548 U.S. at 638 (Kennedy, J., concurring), the absence of a 

well-developed body of law about their use further counsels

against abstention.

But even if Councilman-like abstention applies as a 

general matter to postpone federal courts’ exercise of habeas 

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4

jurisdiction where it would interfere with active military 

commissions, I am unconvinced that it should apply in the 

unique and troubling circumstances of this case.

Significantly, in Councilman—the abstention decision

most analogous to this case—the Supreme Court held only 

that district courts must refrain from exercising their equitable 

powers to intervene in pending court-martial proceedings 

when the petitioner is “threatened with no injury other than 

that incidental to every criminal proceeding brought lawfully 

and in good faith”—that is, where a petitioner is threatened 

with nothing more than the usual “cost, anxiety, and 

inconvenience of having to defend against a single criminal 

prosecution.” Councilman, 420 U.S. at 754–55 (internal 

quotation marks and alteration omitted). The Court expressly 

noted that it had “no occasion to attempt to define those 

circumstances, if any, in which equitable intervention into 

pending court-martial proceedings might be justified,”

explaining that it could “discern nothing” in the circumstances 

of that case that “outweigh[ed] the strong considerations 

favoring exhaustion of remedies” or that “warrant[ed] 

intruding on the integrity of military court processes.” Id. at 

761. The Court thus left open the possibility that cases might 

arise in which extraordinary circumstances would outweigh 

the equity and comity principles underlying abstention. Id. at 

754–55, 761; cf. Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 45–47, 53–

54 (1971) (recognizing that federal courts must generally 

abstain from deciding cases that would interfere with pending 

state criminal proceedings but acknowledging that 

“extraordinary” or “unusual” circumstances may overcome 

the equity, comity, and federalism principles that ordinarily 

require abstention).

Here, it appears that extraordinary and unusual 

circumstances may well outweigh whatever equity and interUSCA Case #15-5020 Document #1632743 Filed: 08/30/2016 Page 56 of 69
5

branch comity principles might otherwise justify Councilmanlike abstention. In petitioning for pretrial review of the 

military commission’s authority to try him, Al-Nashiri alleges 

that the government subjected him to years of brutal detention 

and interrogation tactics that left him in a compromised 

physical and psychological state and that the harms he has 

already suffered will be exacerbated—perhaps permanently—

by the government’s prosecution of him in a military 

commission. If there is merit to these allegations, the harms 

he will suffer are truly extraordinary and are a far cry from the 

ordinary burdens—even serious ones—that individuals 

endure in the course of defending against criminal 

prosecutions.

According to the unclassified version of Al-Nashiri’s

brief, local authorities in the United Arab Emirates seized him 

in October 2002 and transferred him to United States custody. 

Pet’r’s Br. 5. The CIA then detained him at secret locations, 

commonly referred to as black sites, as part of its “newlyformed Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (‘RDI’) 

Program.” Id. Al-Nashiri asserts that this program employed 

extreme interrogation tactics with the hopes of inducing 

“learned helplessness” among the detainees. Id. Dr. Sondra S. 

Crosby, a Department of Defense-appointed expert and a 

board-certified physician who specializes in treating victims 

of torture, explains that “learned helplessness” is a concept 

first introduced in the 1960s by experimental psychologist Dr. 

Martin Seligman. Crosby Decl. ¶ 11. Seligman’s work, which 

“consisted of restraining dogs and subjecting them to random 

and repeated electric shocks,” found that “[d]ogs that could 

not control or influence their suffering in any way ‘learned’ to 

become helpless, collapsing into a state of passivity.” Id.

According to Al-Nashiri, the CIA’s RDI program sought to 

induce “learned helplessness” in the detainees so that they

“might become passive and depressed in response to adverse 

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6

or uncontrollable events, and . . . thus cooperate and provide 

information.” Pet’r’s Br. 5 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Describing his treatment at the hands of the CIA from 

2002 to 2006, Al-Nashiri, in the unclassified version of his

brief, which I quote at length, asserts the following:

The first records of Al-Nashiri[’s] treatment 

[redacted]. He was not allowed to sleep, was 

regularly beaten, and hung by his hands. After a 

month, he was transferred to CIA custody and taken 

to a location codenamed COBALT. In transit to 

COBALT, ice was put down his shirt. This appears 

to have been done as part of a broader policy of 

using transportation between black sites to induce 

anxiety and helplessness.

Virtually no documentation of Al-Nashiri’s time 

at COBALT exists. Certain facts can be ascertained 

from then-prevailing standard operating procedures. 

The chief of interrogations described COBALT as 

“good for interrogations because it is the closest 

thing he has seen to a dungeon, facilitating the 

displacement of detainee expectations.” COBALT 

operated in total darkness and the guard staff wore 

headlamps. [Redacted]. Detainees were subjected to 

loud continuous noise, isolation, and dietary 

manipulation. 

According to one CIA interrogator, detainees at 

COBALT “[‘]literally looked like [dogs] that had 

been kenneled.’ When the doors to their cells were 

opened, ‘they cowered.’” At COBALT, [redacted]. 

Detainees were fed on an alternating schedule of one 

meal on one day and two meals the next day. They 

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7

were kept naked, shackled to the wall, and given 

buckets for their waste. On one occasion, Al-Nashiri 

was forced to keep his hands on the wall and not 

given food for three days. To induce sleep 

deprivation, detainees were shackled to a bar on the 

ceiling, forcing them to stand with their arms above 

their heads. [Redacted].

[Redacted] use of improvised interrogation 

methods, such as water dousing, wherein a detainee 

was doused with cold water and rolled into a carpet, 

which would then be soaked with water in order to 

induce suffocation. 

[Redacted].

[Redacted] Al-Nashiri was kept continually 

naked and the temperature was kept, in his words, 

“cold as ice cream.” [Redacted].

The documentation of conditions at [redacted] 

lacks specificity. Most summaries of interrogation[s]

say simply [redacted]. There is no question, 

however, that Al-Nashiri was “waterboarded” at 

GREEN. This entailed being tied to a slanted table, 

with his feet elevated. A rag was then placed over his 

forehead and eyes, and water poured into his mouth 

and nose, inducing choking and water aspiration. 

The rag was then lowered, suffocating him with 

water still in his throat and sinuses. Eventually, the 

rag was lifted, allowing him to “take 3–4 breaths” 

before the process was repeated. 

[Redacted]

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8

. . . .

After interrogators questioned Al-Nashiri’s 

intelligence value, CIA Headquarters sent an 

untrained, unqualified, uncertified, and unapproved 

officer to be Al-Nashiri’s new interrogator at BLUE. 

[Redacted]. Al-Nashiri was kept continually hooded, 

shackled, and naked. He was regularly strung up on 

the wall overnight. Al-Nashiri was regularly forced 

into “stress positions” prompting a Physician’s 

Assistant to express concern that Al-Nashiri’s arms 

might be dislocated.

While prone, this [redacted] interrogator 

menaced Al-Nashiri with a handgun. The 

interrogator racked the handgun “once or twice” 

close to Al-Nashiri’s head. [Redacted]. 

The [redacted] interrogator also threatened to 

“get your mother in here,” in an Arabic dialect 

implying he was from a country where it was 

common to rape family members in front detainees 

[sic]. [Redacted]. These threats were coupled with 

“forced bathing” with a wire brush to abrade the 

skin, [redacted]. There is also evidence Al-Nashiri 

was, in fact, forcibly sodomized, possibly under the 

pretext of a cavity search that was done with 

“excessive force.” 

Id. at 9–19 (internal citations and footnote omitted).

In his unclassified brief, Al-Nashiri further claims that at 

one point

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[t]he CIA’s Chief of Interrogations, a person whose 

presence had previously caused Al-Nashiri to 

tremble in fear, threatened to resign if further torture 

was ordered. He wrote that torturing Al-Nashiri is “a 

train wreak [sic] waiting to happen and I intend to 

get the hell off the train before it happens.” He then 

wrote a cable to be “entered for the record” that “we 

have serious reservations with the continued use of 

enhanced techniques with [Al-Nashiri] and its long 

term impact on him. [Al-Nashiri] has been held for 

three months in very difficult conditions, both 

physically and mentally. . . . [Al-Nashiri] has been 

mainly truthful and is not withholding significant 

information. To continue to use enhanced 

technique[s] without clear indications that he [is] 

withholding important info is excessive. . . . Also 

both C/CTC/RG and HVT interrogator who departed 

[BLUE] in [REDACTED] January, believe 

continued enhanced methods may push [al-Nashiri] 

over the edge psychologically.” Headquarters 

ordered Al-Nashiri to be tortured further.

Id. at 20 (internal citations omitted) (alterations in original). 

According to Al-Nashiri, several years after he was 

detained as part of the RDI program, the government 

requested that a competency board evaluate him. “Two 

psychologists and one psychiatrist conducted interviews with 

[him] and reviewed numerous documents including 

summaries of his interrogations, medical assessment notes, 

and psychological assessment notes from 2002 through 

2006.” Id. at 6. They concluded that he suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive 

disorder. Id. at 7. 

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10

Al-Nashiri claims that these conditions are “the result—

intended result—of the government’s deliberate, years-long 

campaign to coerce [him] into a state of ‘learned 

helplessness.’” Id. at 9. He further claims that a military trial 

will greatly aggravate these conditions, with potentially 

permanent consequences for his mental and physical health.

In support, he offers the declaration of his DoD-appointed 

expert, Dr. Crosby. Based on her examinations of Al-Nashiri, 

Dr. Crosby believes that he “suffers from complex 

posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of extreme physical, 

psychological, and sexual torture inflicted upon him by the 

United States.” Crosby Decl. ¶¶ 7, 12. She concludes that the 

CIA “succeeded in inducing ‘learned helplessness’” and that 

Al-Nashiri is “most likely irreversibly damaged by torture.” 

Id. Indeed, she writes that in her “many years of experience 

treating torture victims from around the world,” Al-Nashiri

“presents as one of the most severely traumatized individuals 

[she] ha[s] ever seen.” Id.

After recounting aspects of Al-Nashiri’s treatment and its 

current impact on his physical and psychological well-being, 

Dr. Crosby states that “[a]lthough, even in the best of 

circumstances, the horrific and calculated nature of his torture 

would be expected to have long lasting effects, there are 

multiple factors that are unique to Guantánamo and the 

military proceedings against [Al-Nashiri] that are further 

exacerbating his symptoms and suffering.” Id. ¶ 16. She notes

that because Guantanamo was one of the black sites at which

he was held, he is regularly “confronted with reminders . . . of 

his time in CIA custody.” Id. ¶ 17. In her opinion, “[s]eeing 

these reminders particularly when shackled as he often is 

while moved to and from meetings with counsel and to court, 

triggers traumatic stress and causes him intense anxiety, 

dissociation, and painful flashbacks to his experience of 

torture.” Id. Noting that “[a] key strategy of the CIA’s RDI 

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11

program was to keep the detention facility’s policies and 

procedures unpredictable in order to induce helplessness,” Dr. 

Crosby opines that ongoing instability at Guantanamo 

“profoundly exacerbates . . . Al-Nashiri’s complex PTSD”

because he has “no way of differentiating this from the 

government’s prior deliberate efforts to destabilize his 

personality.” Id. ¶¶ 20–21. 

Dr. Crosby further believes that, “[a]t present, the 

military trial process is a principal driver of this instability”

and Al-Nashiri’s condition. Id. ¶ 22. She states, for example, 

that “the ad hoc character of the proceedings,” in which the 

government seeks to impose death, causes Al-Nashiri 

“profound anxiety,” id. ¶ 23, and that the “lack of continuity 

of [his] defense team” due to military personnel rules 

undermines his ability to build trusting relationships with his 

attorneys, id. ¶ 24. 

While recognizing that a capital trial in any tribunal

would be stressful, Dr. Crosby states that her understanding of 

“the more predictable procedures of federal confinement and 

trials causes [her] to believe that the contemplated military 

trial is stressful on a different order of magnitude and, given 

. . . Al-Nashiri’s situation and fragile psychological state 

induced by torture, exponentially more harmful.” Id. ¶ 26. She 

has “serious doubts” about his ability to “remain physically 

and mentally capable of handling the physical and emotional 

stress of the military trial process,” and she “fear[s]” that, if 

forced to undergo a military trial, Al-Nashiri “will eventually 

decompensate” with “permanently disabling effect[s] on his 

personality and his capacity to cooperate meaningfully with 

his attorneys.” Id. ¶ 27.

In its responsive brief, the government contests neither 

Al-Nashiri’s allegations regarding his past treatment nor the 

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12

potential consequences of a capital trial in a military 

commission. Instead, the government insists that those

allegations are irrelevant because the burdens attendant to

defending against criminal prosecutions are insufficient to

overcome the equity and inter-branch comity principles that

justify abstention in cases like Councilman. See Resp’t’s Br. 

61. But as noted above, Councilman held only that the 

ordinary burdens of defending against criminal prosecutions, 

however serious, are insufficient to outweigh such 

considerations. If there is merit to Al-Nashiri’s allegations 

regarding his treatment and to Dr. Crosby’s assessment of his 

current condition and the consequences of proceeding with a 

military trial, then Al-Nashiri is threatened with far more than 

the harms “incidental to every criminal proceeding brought 

lawfully and in good faith.” Councilman, 420 U.S. at 754 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, the alleged

burdens he faces are not only unusual, but extraordinary. He 

contends that because the executive branch, the very authority

that now seeks to try him, subjected him to years of brutal

detention and interrogation tactics—“torture” in the words of 

his DoD-appointed expert—he suffers from psychological

disorders that will be aggravated by a capital trial in a military 

commission. Surely, such circumstances—if true—would 

outweigh the equity and inter-branch comity principles that 

might otherwise call for abstention. See id. at 761.

The district court, in invoking Councilman’s abstention 

doctrine, failed to address whether Al-Nashiri’s potential 

harms involve the kind of extraordinary circumstances that 

could warrant federal court intervention in pending military 

commission cases. In an alternative ruling on Al-Nashiri’s 

motion for a preliminary injunction, the district court did state 

that Al-Nashiri failed to show the sort of irreparable injury 

necessary to obtain injunctive relief. Al-Nashiri v. Obama, 76 

F. Supp. 3d 218, 222 n.3 (D.D.C. 2014). Its explanation

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13

consisted of a single sentence: “‘[T]he inconvenience of any 

criminal prosecution, including those associated with the

military commissions, is insufficient, standing alone, to 

warrant federal court intervention.’” Id. (quoting Al Odah v. 

Bush, 593 F. Supp. 2d 53, 58 (D.D.C. 2009)). In reaching this 

conclusion, the court ignored Al-Nashiri’s assertions that the 

unusual and extraordinary circumstances of his confinement 

had caused serious physical and psychological harms that 

would be severely aggravated by trial in a military 

commission. Indeed, without giving Al-Nashiri the 

opportunity to submit classified declarations about those 

harms, as his counsel had requested, the court determined that 

any harms involved in defending against a criminal 

prosecution could not qualify as irreparable.

In my view, the district court erred in concluding that the 

types of harms Al-Nashiri asserts are governed by the general

rule that federal courts must decline to exercise their equitable 

powers when individuals face no harms other than those 

ordinarily involved in defending against criminal 

prosecutions. Al-Nashiri asserts potential injuries different in 

both degree and kind from those normally sustained in the 

course of criminal proceedings. Cf. McLucas v. 

DeChamplain, 421 U.S. 21, 33 (1975) (“[T]he only harm 

DeChamplain claimed in support of his prayed for equitable 

relief was that, if convicted, he might remain incarcerated 

pending review within the military system.”). As a result,

even putting aside my concerns about applying a Councilmanlike abstention doctrine to delay federal court consideration of

habeas claims related to the current military commission

system, I would remand this case to the district court for factfinding with respect to Al-Nashiri’s alleged harms and for a 

determination of whether those harms are sufficient to 

overcome the equity and inter-branch comity principles that 

might otherwise justify abstention. If the district court—after 

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14

taking whatever fact-finding steps it deemed necessary, such 

as conducting an evidentiary hearing—were to determine that 

Al-Nashiri’s alleged harms are as serious as he claims, they 

would no doubt qualify as the kind of extraordinary 

circumstances that “outweigh” whatever equity and interbranch comity principles might underlie Councilman-like 

abstention. If they do not qualify as such, it would be hard to 

imagine any that would.

The court dismisses these circumstances as insufficient.

Drawing upon cases applying the Younger abstention

doctrine, which requires that courts generally refrain from 

exercising jurisdiction where doing so would interfere with 

state proceedings implicating important state interests, the 

court states that “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ exception”

applies only where a petitioner can show that “he will suffer a 

‘great and immediate’ harm absent federal-court intervention”

and “the alternative tribunal is ‘incapable of fairly and fully 

adjudicating the federal issues before it.’” Majority Op. at 34–

35 (quoting Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 123–24 (1975)). 

According to the court, Al-Nashiri’s claims “say nothing 

about the competence of the military commission,” and thus

“do[] not bring [Al-Nashiri’s] harms under the limited and 

narrow meaning of the exception.” Id. at 34–35.

As an initial matter, I am skeptical that even in the 

context of Younger abstention, Al-Nashiri’s circumstances

could not qualify as the sort of extraordinary circumstances 

that could outweigh the equity, comity, and federalism 

principles generally dictating abstention. Although some 

statements from the Younger line of cases may be read to 

limit Younger’s “extraordinary circumstances” exception to 

situations in which state tribunals cannot be expected to fairly 

and fully adjudicate litigants’ claims for reasons such as bias 

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and bad faith, see Kugler, 421 U.S. at 124, the Supreme Court 

has never addressed a situation like the one we face here.

But putting those doubts aside, I am unpersuaded that we

must apply the same sort of “extraordinary circumstances” 

exception as that developed in the Younger line of cases.

Contrary to the court’s suggestion, there is no single rule of 

abstention, with a single “extraordinary circumstances” 

exception. See Majority Op. at 34–35. Instead, drawing upon 

similar but distinct principles, the Supreme Court has 

developed a variety of abstention doctrines that seek to 

address, in the ordinary case, the appropriate balance between 

individual interests in federal court adjudication and 

considerations of equity and comity. In Younger, for instance, 

the Supreme Court held that absent bad faith, harassment, 

enforcement of a patently unconstitutional statute, or other 

“unusual” circumstances, considerations of equity, comity, 

and federalism demand abstention in cases related to certain 

state proceedings. See, e.g., Kugler, 421 U.S. at 123–24.

Later, in Councilman the Court held that where a 

servicemember is threatened with nothing more than the 

ordinary burdens involved in defending against a criminal 

prosecution in a court-martial, equity and inter-branch comity 

considerations require abstention. See Councilman, 420 U.S. 

at 754–58, 761.

Importantly, each of these abstention doctrines balanced

different considerations. That much is evident from the fact 

that Councilman abstention includes an exception that 

Younger does not—specifically, for challenges to a courtmartial’s personal jurisdiction over a litigant. See 

Councilman, 420 U.S. at 759–60; Hamdan, 548 U.S. at 585

n.16. The Court determined that in cases presenting such 

challenges, the abstention calculus comes out differently, 

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namely, in favor of federal courts exercising their jurisdiction.

See Councilman, 420 U.S. at 759–60.

Because the Supreme Court’s abstention doctrines

involve distinct balancing calculations, I am unconvinced that

any limits the Court may have imposed on the sorts of 

“extraordinary circumstances” that can outweigh the 

justifications for abstention in cases related to ongoing state 

proceedings necessarily apply in cases involving Councilman

abstention. No decision compels that view. And I certainly do 

not believe that those conclusions are dispositive regarding 

the sorts of circumstances that may outweigh whatever equity 

and inter-branch comity principles might generally require 

abstention in cases—like this one—that relate to pending

military commission cases against non-servicemembers. As 

noted above, the considerations involved in each are different.

See supra, at 1–3, 15. Consequently, the circumstances 

justifying federal court intervention may also differ. 

Here, we are not confronted with a separate sovereign 

seeking to vindicate important interests as it sees fit. Instead, 

we are faced with the federal executive branch’s assertion that 

it should get the first crack at deciding Al-Nashiri’s 

substantial constitutional and statutory challenges to a 

military commission’s authority to try him even though AlNashiri may, because of the executive branch’s past actions, 

suffer severe and permanent injuries from the exercise of its 

jurisdiction. Further, the military commission has concluded 

that it will not fully determine its own jurisdiction, in the first 

instance, until trial. By the time Al-Nashiri has an opportunity 

for meaningful judicial review, the extraordinary injuries may 

well have occurred.

When the notions of equity and inter-branch comity 

articulated by the court are considered against Al-Nashiri’s 

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unusual and extraordinary allegations of harm, as well as the 

long-established principle that it is the judiciary’s duty to 

ultimately say what the law is, see Zivotofsky, 132 S. Ct. at

1427–28, I believe that abstention—again, assuming AlNashiri’s allegations are true—is unwarranted. 

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