Bismullah To Get Status Review: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reported today that the Pentagon intends to review the status of Bismullah, an Afghan national detained at Guantanamo Bay. Bismullah's lawyers have argued for months that he has been detained by mistake, and his case is currently awaiting a decision from the United States Supreme Court in Gates v. Bismullah (07-1054). Denniston reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has avoided action in Bismullah until it decides Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. U.S. The Pentagon's review will include a new “Combatant Status Review Tribunal” based on new evidence. This news comes at the same time as the Justice Department's announcement that the second "Combatant Status Review Tribunal" for detainee Al Ginco, based on new evidence submitted by Al Ginco's counsel, resulted in classification as an "enemy combatant".

Baze Backlash: Over at Sentencing Law and Policy Doug Berman reports and comments on Elisabeth Semel's piece in the The National Law Journal. The article is called "Fearing Too Much Justice" and argues that death penalty states should be using Baze as the standard by which to review each of the state's lethal injection protocols. Berman's comments on the article are the best part of the post:

"Actually, I think that what some members of the current Supreme Court truly fear is what Semel and other death penalty opponents often seem eager to seek: the de facto elimination of the death penalty through persistent constitutional litigation rather than de jure reform through the democratic process. The fear is not of too much justice, but of too much persistent effort by death penalty abolitionists to achieve through the courts what they have not been achieve through the ballot box."

Obama's Position on the Courts: Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy had two posts today on comments Senator Obama has made to the press about the type of Justice he would appoint. The first post reports on Obama's interview with Wolf Blitzer where he states he will seek Justices who will be able to use their own experiences and morals to protect "those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power and as a consequence can't protect themselves from being being dealt with sometimes unfairly." Kerr opines that Blitzer fell short when he failed to ask Obama for examples of what type of Justice he would appoint - as this would give us a better idea of what exactly Obama has in mind when he describes his ideal Justice. The second post reports on Obama's July 2007 speech at Planned Parenthood Action Fund. There, Obama stated he did not support judges that took the view that the Constitution in a" cramped and narrow way in which the Constitution and the courts essentially become the rubber stamps of the powerful in society."