News & Events

On June 12, 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Guantánamo detainees in Boumediene v. Bush (No. 06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (No. 06-1196), striking down the provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear detainees' habeas petitions as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. This landmark ruling clears the way for detainees to resume pressing habeas petitions challenging the grounds of their continued detention by the U.S. military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Last August, Simpson Thacher, working with Prof. Beth Van Schaack of the Santa Clara University Law School, filed a brief amicus curiae on behalf of a distinguished group of international humanitarian law ("IHL") experts in support of detainees' right to bring habeas petitions in U.S. federal courts. Simpson Thacher's brief argued that the Third Geneva Convention provides prisoners of war with substantive and procedural rights and that, in considering whether to retain jurisdiction over Petitioners' pending habeas petitions, the Court should be mindful of these and other international legal obligations to which the United States is bound. The Simpson Thacher team on the brief included Harrison "Buzz" Frahn, Patrick King, Angela Moore, Adam Anderson and Michael Lizano.

Simpson Thacher also continues to represent a Saudi detainee at Guantánamo (as well as a former detainee) in connection with their petitions for writ of habeas corpus and other civil legal challenges to their detention. The Simpson Thacher attorneys involved in this litigation include Paul Curnin, Josh Levine, David Elbaum, Karen Abravanel, Sarah Dunn, Emma Lindsay, Ellen Frye and summer associate Brian Mahanna.