Opinion ID: 1460165
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Attorney Access to Prospective Clients

Text: The Government refuses to give counsel access to classified information or to the legal mail system until counsel provides written evidence that a detainee has personally authorized counsel to represent him, even when a next friend purports to act on behalf of a detainee. To that end, the Government proposes to allow a lawyer one visit to Guantánamo to meet with a potential detainee client for up to a total of eight hours in which to obtain the detainee's authorization to pursue a petition for review of the detainee's status determination. The Government asserts the eight-hour limit is needed to prevent an unwieldy and unworkable situation, apparently referring to the burden upon the base administration of accommodating numerous visits by lawyers to meet with potential clients. The Government believes a detainee's personal authorization is strongly [to be] preferred because a putative next friend probably does not satisfy the requirements for standing. See Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 163, 165, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990) (holding in habeas action next friend who is truly dedicated to the best interests of the person on whose behalf he seeks to litigate has standing to act on behalf of prisoner who is unable to litigate his own cause due to mental incapacity, lack of access to court, or other similar disability). For one thing, each detainee has been notified of his right to seek review under the DTA. In addition, some detainees, according to the Government, revel in their status as enemies of the United States and should be allowed to choose not to participate in a DTA action. The petitioners' counsel object to the eight-hour limit upon their effort to persuade a detainee to pursue an action under the DTA because, they say, the detainees are so distrustful that it can take longer than that to persuade one to engage counsel. They propose that a lawyer be allowed to visit a detainee as a potential client twice, for an unspecified period of time, as has been allowed until now under the Status Quo Order. We conclude the requirement of the Status Quo Order that a lawyer provide evidence of . . . authority to represent the detainee . . . after the conclusion of a second visit with the detainee is reasonable in that it allows the lawyer time to earn the detainee's trust and to discuss whether the detainee wants to file a petition for judicial review. The Government has not shown that two visits rather than one will harm its interests or overburden its resources. On the contrary, the Government itself has allowed that a detainee represented by counsel should not be limited to three visits with retained counsel  as the Government had first proposed in this case  because, based upon an evaluation of the resources and needs at Guantanamo by Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, Commander of the Joint Task Force-Guantánamo, the Government determined such a limitation is no longer warranted. Though the Government asserts its proposed one visit/eight-hour limitation upon meetings between a lawyer and a potential client is still warranted and appropriate in light of the operations at Guantánamo, it has made no showing that a lawyer's additional visit to see a potential client imposes any greater burden upon it than does a lawyer's additional visit to a client he or she already represents. Counsel for Bismullah, who represent Bismullah's putative next friend, maintain they need present only evidence of . . . authority to represent the detainee, rather than the Government's proposed consent form bearing the detainee's signature. They argue that requiring counsel to produce evidence both that a detainee authorizes counsel to act on his behalf and that he authorizes the filing of a petition submitted by a detainee's next friend would, in effect, eliminate next friend cases by requiring that each next friend action become a direct action. In Whitmore, the Supreme Court concluded that the Congress, in enacting 28 U.S.C. § 2242 (Application for a writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf), had codified the historic practice of allowing a next friend to file a petition for habeas corpus on behalf of a prisoner. 495 U.S. at 162-63, 110 S.Ct. 1717. Therefore, when the Congress later authorized this court to review the status determination of a CSRT upon the basis of a claim brought by or on behalf of an alien [detainee], DTA § 1005(e)(2)(B), we understand it to have permitted a next friend to petition for review of a CSRT determination when the detainee is unable to litigate his own cause due to mental incapacity, lack of access to court, or other similar disability. Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 165, 110 S.Ct. 1717. Hence, we reject the Government's proposal to require a detainee personally to authorize a next friend to act on his behalf when a petitioner asserting next friend standing can demonstrate the detainee is under such a disability. After two visits between a lawyer and a detainee, either the lawyer should be able to obtain the detainee's express authorization to represent him in a DTA action or the would-be next friend should be able to obtain, through the lawyer, evidence of the detainee's disability and best interests sufficient to perfect the next friend's standing. See id. We reject the Government's proposal to require that the detainee sign a form authorizing the filing of the petition submitted by a putative next friend; the inquiry into whether a would-be next friend has standing is necessarily a matter to be determined case by case.