{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Attorney General John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim\u0026#39;s post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings.  The court is expected to make its decision by June.' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bbe6d8eafeecae128980' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bbe6d8eafeecae128980' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nThe Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Attorney General John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim\u0026#39;s post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings.  The court is expected to make its decision by June.\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eHEADLINE: Supreme Court hears argument over post-9/11 arrest  CAPTION: The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim's post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eHEADLINE: Supreme Court hears argument over post-9/11 arrest  \u003cbr/\u003eCAPTION: The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim's post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings.  The court is expected to make its decision by June. (March 2)\u003cbr/\u003eJesse Holland, AP Supreme Court Reporter\u003cbr/\u003eLee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union/Attorney for Abdullah Al-Kidd\u003cbr/\u003eWASHINGTON (AP) _ The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Attorney General John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim's post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings, a move a couple of justices worried could have a profound effect in how federal prosecutors fight crime.\u003cbr/\u003e   Lower court judges have come down on opposite sides about whether an arrest under a material witness warrant like the one used on Abdullah al-Kidd in 2003 is constitutional. Making prosecutors financially liable in that situation might be unfair to them when they have to make high-pressure decisions on how to fight crime and terrorism, Chief Justice John Roberts said. \u003cbr/\u003e   \"And that type of burden is particularly heavy when you're talking about if they guess wrong, it comes out of their pocket,\" Roberts said. \"And if I'm the officer in that situation, I say, well, I'm just not going to run the risk of, you know, having to sell the house because I agreed with\" the losing side in a judicial opinion.\u003cbr/\u003e   Al-Kidd, a native of Kansas who teaches English to college students in Saudi Arabia, contends his arrest and detention under a material witness warrant, which is normally used to ensure witnesses show up and testify in court, was just a cover for Ashcroft and the Justice Department to detain him without charges in violation of the 4th Amendment. Al-Kidd was never called to testify before a grand jury or in open court and was not charged with a crime.\u003cbr/\u003e   Allowing al-Kidd to drag Ashcroft into court in an attempt to hold him financially liable for his 2003 arrest and detention might make future attorneys general and other federal prosecutors hesitate in using all of their available weapons to fight crime and terrorism, acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal told justices.\u003cbr/\u003e   \"No doubt that certain individuals will be harmed, but the cost of rooting out the bad apples through damages lawsuits is far worse, that it causes prosecutors to flinch in the performance of their duties,\" Katyal said. \u003cbr/\u003e   But \"you don't think there's a reason to make prosecutors flinch against willy-nilly\" detentions, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Katyal. \"If you take the point that you're raising, then prosecutors can out of spite, out of pure investigative reasoning, out of whatever motive they have, just lock people up.\"\u003cbr/\u003e   \"Making prosecutors flinch is always a bad thing,\" Katyal said. \u003cbr/\u003e   Abdullah al-Kidd was arrested at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., in 2003, preparing to board a flight to Saudi Arabia. Once arrested, he was repeatedly strip-searched, left naked in a jail cell and shower for more than 90 minutes in view of other men and women, routinely transported in handcuffs and leg irons, and kept with people who had been convicted of violent crimes. On a long trip between jails, a federal marshal refused to unlock al-Kidd's chains so he could use the bathroom.\u003cbr/\u003e   That was noted by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who called it \"very disturbing.\"\u003cbr/\u003e   \"Now that doesn't sound like the way one would treat someone whose testimony you want,\" she said. \u003cbr/\u003e   Al-Kidd sued Ashcroft, asserting that his arrest stemmed from the attorney general's policy to detain suspected terrorists when the government did not have sufficient evidence to hold them on criminal charges. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed the case against Ashcroft to go forward.\u003cbr/\u003e   No attorney general has ever been held personally liable for official actions, civil rights lawyers said.\u003cbr/\u003e   Katyal argued that Ashcroft also should be shielded from suits concerning his official duties.\u003cbr/\u003e   \"The prosecutor's act of seeking the material witness warrant is integrally associated with the judicial process and entitled to absolute immunity,\" Katyal said. \"To view it any other way is to expose both line prosecutors and high officials to lawsuits by highly incentivized litigants based on their purportedly bad motives.\" \u003cbr/\u003e   But Sotomayor seemed to disagree on that point. \"There is a difference between calling a witness at trial and arresting a person. How is it a part of the prosecutorial or the trial function to arrest someone?\" she said. \u003cbr/\u003e   Al-Kidd, now 38, was one of about 70 men, almost all Muslims, who were arrested and held in the months and years after Sept. 11 under a federal law intended to compel reluctant witnesses to testify to grand juries and at criminal trials. \u003cbr/\u003e   Ashcroft and other high-ranking officials publicly described the importance of using the material witness law against suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens. Less than two months after Sept. 11, Ashcroft said that the \"aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses is vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.\"\u003cbr/\u003e   Lee Gelernt, al-Kidd's lawyer, argued that Ashcroft's policy authorizing the use of material witness warrants to detain people not needed for trial was unconstitutional. \u003cbr/\u003e   \"If a material witness arrest is constitutional, it can only be because its purpose is to secure testimony and not to preventively detain and investigate the witness himself,\" he said.\u003cbr/\u003e   The court is expected to make its decision by June. \u003cbr/\u003e   The case is Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 10-98.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='action-container flex justify-between'\u003e\n\u003cbutton aria-expanded='false' aria-label='Read more description' class='rp-full-description' type='button'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fai fa-solid 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The court is expected to make its decision by June.\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cimg class=\"resource-img img-thumbnail img-responsive z-10 lp-boclips-thumbnail w-full h-full lozad\" alt=\"The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Attorney General John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim\u0026#39;s post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings.  The court is expected to make its decision by June.\" title=\"The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to allow former Attorney General John Ashcroft to be sued for an American Muslim\u0026#39;s post-Sept. 11 arrest and detention using a law intended to make sure witnesses testify in criminal proceedings.  The court is expected to make its decision by June.\" onError=\"handleImageNotLoadedError(this)\" data-default-image=\"https://static.lp.lexp.cloud/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/missing.png\" data-src=\"https://static.lp.lexp.cloud/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/missing.png\" width=\"315\" height=\"220\" src=\"data:image/png;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAD/ACwAAAAAAQABAAACADs\" /\u003e\n\u003cspan aria-hidden='true' class='flex justify-center items-center bg-white rounded-full w-16 h-16 absolute top-1/2 left-1/2 -mt-8 -ml-8 cursor-pointer z-0 border-2 border-primary drop-shadow-md lp-boclips-thumbnail-playBtn'\u003e\n\u003ci class='fa-solid fa-play text-primary text-3xl ml-1 drop-shadow-xl'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n"}