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Justice Department Seeks Power to Suspend Habeas Corpus, Indefinitely Detain Americans

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Saturday, 21 March 2020 22:00

Justice Department Seeks Power to Suspend Habeas Corpus, Indefinitely Detain Americans

The Department of Justice has secretly requested that Congress suspend habeas corpus and to allow “indefinite detention” of citizens without trial until the end of the Coronavirus panic, several news agencies are reporting today.

Politico reports:

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted. POLITICO also reviewed and previously reported on documents seeking the authority to extend deadlines on merger reviews and prosecutions.

More precisely, Attorney General William Barr seeks the authority to empower federal judges throughout the country to provisionally deny constitutionally protected civil and individual rights to people within their jurisdictions. This power would, per Politico, “span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated.”

Barr’s quest for supremacy of his opinion over the rights guaranteed by the Constitution doesn’t stop there, though. Again, per the story broken by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan:

The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ document wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies, but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”

More

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/35215-justice-department-seeks-power-to-suspend-habeas-corpus-indefinitely-detain-americans