Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports that the District Court has dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the habeas petition of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan, whose case went to the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The memorandum by Judge Robertson is here.

The opinion has three main points. First, the statute did repeal the court's habeas jurisdiction. The court brushed aside rather easily the shaky statutory interpretation argument that it did not.

Second, Congress has not validly suspended the writ of habeas corpus. The constitutional conditions for suspension, rebellion or invasion, are not present. "If and to the extent that the MCA operates to make the writ unavailable to a person who is constitutionally entitled to it, it must be unconstitutional."

Third, Hamdan is not constitutionally entitled to it. Here Judge Robertson has an analysis of the historical cases of habeas for aliens that is quite consistent with our brief in Hamdan and rejects the superficial citation of these cases by Justice Stevens in Rasul v. Bush, n. 11.