Ziglar v. Abbasi
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 2017 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 19, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2016
- Vote
- 4–2
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV-B. After the September 11 terrorist attacks in this country, and in response to the deaths, destruction, and dangers they caused, the United States Government ordered hundreds of illegal aliens to be taken into custody and held. Pending a determination whether a particular detainee had connections to terrorism, the custody, under harsh conditions to be described, continued. In many instances custody lasted for days and weeks, then stretching into months. Later, some of the aliens who had been detained filed suit, leading to the cases now before the Court. The complaint named as defendants three high executive officers in the Department of Justice and two of the wardens at the facility where the detainees had been held. Most of the claims, alleging various constitutional violations, sought damages under the implied cause of action theory adopted by this Court in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971). Another claim in the complaint was based upon the statutory cause of action authorized and created by Congress under Rev. Stat. § 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). This statutory cause of action allows damages to persons injured by conspiracies to deprive them of the equal protection of the laws. The suit was commenced in the United States District Court for…
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