Is this verdict just another act of judicial activism by arrogant liberals on the bench? Not by a long shot.
Of the three judges who signed the opinion, one, Thomas Griffith, was appointed in 2005 by President Bush. Another, David Sentelle, was nominated in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan - and had earlier joined in ruling that the Guantanamo detainees could not go to federal court to assert their innocence (a decision the Supreme Court overturned).
The administration could hardly have asked for a more accommodating group of judges. Yet they found in favor of the detainee on the simple grounds that if the government is going to imprison someone as an enemy combatant, it needs some evidence that he is one.
Mr. Parhat may not be an exceptional case. Most of the prisoners were not captured by the U.S. in combat but were turned over by local forces, often in exchange for a bounty. We had to take someone else's word that they were bad guys.
A 2006 report by Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux found that only 8 percent of those held at Guantanamo were al-Qaida fighters. Even a study done at West Point concluded that just 73 percent of the detainees were a "demonstrated threat" - which means 27 percent were not.
The Parhat case doesn't prove that everyone in detention at Guantanamo is an innocent victim of some misunderstanding. But it does show the dangers of trusting the administration - any administration - to act as judge, jury and jailer. It illustrates the need for an independent review to make sure there is some reason to believe the people being treated as terrorists really deserve it.
If any particular detainees are as bad as the administration claims, it should have no trouble making that case in court. But there is nothing to be gained from the indefinite imprisonment of someone whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Keeping innocent people behind bars is a tragedy for them and a waste for us.
Steve Chapman is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His column appears regularly in The Sun. His e-mail is schapman@tribune.com.
