Merrick Garland on Homeland Security

Investigated domestic terrorism: Unabomber and OK City

Let Abu Ghraib torture victims sue their torturers

In a dissent, Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland said he would allow the Iraqi detainees' lawsuit to move forward against both military contractors. "No act of Congress and no judicial precedent bars the plaintiffs from suing the private contractors--who were neither soldiers nor civilian government employees," Garland wrote. "Employees of private contractors accompanying the Armed Forces in the field are NOT within the military's chain of command, and such contractors ARE subject to civil liability."

Release non-enemy combatants from Guantanamo prison

The imprisonment of the 17 Uighurs has drawn wide attention because of their claim that although they were in Afghanistan when the US invaded in 2001, they were never enemies of this country and were mistakenly swept into Guantanamo.

The one-paragraph notice from the appeals court said a three-judge panel [including Merrick Garland] found in favor of Huzaifa Parhat, a former fruit peddler who made his way from western China to a Uighur camp in Afghanistan. "The court directed the government to release or to transfer Parhat, or to expeditiously hold a new tribunal," the notice said. It said the court had found "invalid" the military's decision that he was an enemy combatant.