## Facts

- Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national lawfully in the United States on a student visa, entered the country on September 10, 2001.
- Federal authorities arrested al-Marri during the September 11 investigation, initially as a material witness, and later charged him with bank and credit card fraud-related offenses.
- On June 23, 2003, the President directed that al-Marri be detained by the military as an “enemy combatant” to prevent him from aiding al Qaeda.
- Following the order, the Attorney General dismissed the pending criminal charges and transferred al-Marri from civilian custody to the Consolidated Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina.
- The government supported the designation primarily through a declaration alleging al-Marri’s al Qaeda training, contacts, funding, mission-related intent, and possession of information relating to chemical weapons and communications with al Qaeda-linked individuals.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress, principally through the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), authorized military detention of a non-citizen lawfully present in the United States and seized on domestic soil as an “enemy combatant.”
2. Whether the habeas proceedings provided constitutionally adequate process to contest the factual basis for al-Marri’s enemy-combatant designation.

## Decision

- The en banc court produced no single majority rationale; controlling holdings were derived from the narrowest grounds supporting the judgment.
- A 5–4 majority concluded that the AUMF authorizes detention of persons properly within a limited “enemy combatant” category, and that the government’s allegations, if proven, could place al-Marri within that category.
- A separate 5–4 majority held that al-Marri had not received constitutionally sufficient process to challenge his designation in the existing habeas proceedings.
- The court reversed in part the denial of habeas relief and remanded for further evidentiary proceedings applying procedures consistent with due process to determine whether al-Marri qualified as an enemy combatant.

## Legal Principles

- The AUMF’s authorization to use “necessary and appropriate force” may include detention of enemy combatants as a traditional incident of war, consistent with the detention rationale recognized in *Hamdi*.
- Any “enemy combatant” detention category must be tightly connected to the armed conflict authorized by Congress and cannot be unlimited in scope.
- Habeas corpus and due process require a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for military detention before a neutral decisionmaker, including notice of the factual grounds and a fair chance to rebut the government’s evidence.
- Substantial judicial deference that effectively treats an executive declaration as conclusive, without a realistic opportunity for rebuttal, is insufficient process even in national security cases.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that Congress, through the AUMF, could authorize military detention of certain alleged al Qaeda operatives captured in the United States, but it required more robust, adversarial habeas procedures before the government could continue to hold al-Marri as an enemy combatant.


Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213 (4th Cir. 2008) (en banc)