Court Opinion

ID: 9497336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:49:02.39891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:08.388562
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
At the outset, I concur in Part I of Chief Judge Wilkins’s opinion, which includes the background information relevant to this appeal, and Part II, which describes our jurisdiction.
Turning to the substantive issue in this case, the Supreme Court has recently resolved the question of whether the district court has the authority to grant access to aliens detained abroad. In Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that * 2241 “draws no distinction between Americans and aliens held in federal custody” and that therefore “there is little reason to think that Congress intended the geographical coverage of the statute to vary depending on the detainees’s citizenship.” Rasul v. Bush, — U.S. -, -, 124 S.Ct. 2686, 2696, 159 L.Ed.2d 548 (June 28, 2004). Moreover, the Court held that *483“Section 2241, by its terms, requires nothing more” than “the District Court’s jurisdiction over petitioners’ custodian.”1 Id. at 2698. Accordingly, I concur in Parts III and IV of Chief Judge Wilkins's opinion.2
Thus, Moussaoui has a Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process of these witnesses because (1) under Rasul, the district court has the power to grant a testimonial writ directed to [Redacted] of these witnesses, and (2) Moussaoui has made a sufficient showing that the witnesses would provide material and favorable testimony based on the charges in the indictment. The Government, however, has refused to provide access to the witnesses. Although I am troubled by the lack of interactivity in the process that generated the substitutions,3 that lack of interactivity is compelled by the substantial national security concerns surrounding these witnesses. I feel that in light of those concerns, the fact that the substitutions will not materially disadvantage the defendant — because he will be permitted to introduce every favorable statement from the witnesses while the Government will be precluded from introducing any inculpatory statements — adequately protects his Sixth Amendment rights. Accordingly, I concur in Part V of Chief Judge Wilkins’s opinion.

.Section 2241 authorizes both the Great Writ, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241(c)(l)-(4), and the testimonial and prosecutorial writs, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241(c)(5). See Carbo v. United States, 364 U.S. 611, 81 S.Ct. 338, 5 L.Ed.2d 329 (1961) (tracing the history of the prosecu-torial and testimonial writs). Section 2241(a) provides that the courts may grant a writ of habeas corpus, and section 2241(c) provides that the writ "shall not extend to a prisoner” unless certain circumstances exist, e.g., custody in violation of the Constitution or the need to bring the prisoner to testify or for trial. In its categorical holding in Rasul v. Bush, - U.S. -, 124 S.Ct. 2686, 159 L.Ed.2d 548 (June 28, 2004), the Supreme Court’makes no distinction between the different writs provided for by Section 2241. As the same statutory language in section 2241(a) authorizes both writs, I see no basis to distinguish the testimonial writ.

. I offer no opinion on whether the same result would obtain if Congress were to amend Section 2241.

. I note that this lack of interactivity could be ameliorated in part by utilizing a process similar to that used by the 9/11 Commission.