Supreme Court Agrees to Decide Immunity of Former Attorney General
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other past government officials have immunity from a lawsuit claiming religious discrimination against Sept. 11 detainees, SCOTUSblog reports.
The suit by Pakistan citizen Javaid Iqbal claims he was discriminated against on the basis of religion and race when was detained in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the petition for certiorari (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog). He claims Ashcroft and former FBI Director Robert Mueller approved the restrictive detention of high-interest suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks. He also contends that in New York, all Arab Muslim men arrested on criminal or immigration charges were considered to be of interest in the Sept. 11 investigation.
The case, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, will be heard next term along with two other appeals granted today, according to SCOTUSblog.
One of them is Peake v. Sanders, which asks whether the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has a duty to give veterans full notice of information that will be needed to determine a benefits claim. The case concerns a veteran’s claim for an eye condition that he said was the result of his time in the service, according to the petition for certiorari (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog).
The other is Haywood v. Drown, which tests the constitutionality of a New York law that requires federal civil rights claims and other damages claims against prison employees to be heard in a state claims court.
The Associated Press and Reuters also have coverage of the Iqbal case.
Updated at 10:45 a.m. to include links to the AP and Reuters stories.
