CNN goof on Supreme Court’s military detention decision:

Unlearned Hand points out this item:

[Edward] Lazarus said several unusual alliances were formed in many of the bigger rulings, where traditional liberal and conservative justices came together.

Such was the case of Yaser Hamdi, a Saudi Arabian man born in Louisiana. He was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, and eventually transferred to U.S. military custody, without access until recently to a lawyer. In the biggest ruling this term, the court said he deserved a hearing before a judge.

Moderate-liberal justice David Souter, as well as Breyer and Ginsburg sided with Hamdi, joining the more conservative Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy and O’Connor. Supporting the government was liberal John Paul Stevens, joined by the two most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Uh, except that Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Stevens, wrote an opinion strongly opposing the government’s position; Justice Thomas supported the government. I think the description of the other Justices’ position is also somewhat inaccurate — they supported Hamdi in concluding that he was entitled to some review of whether he’s an enemy combatant, but supported the government in concluding that such review could be relatively deferential, for instance not requiring a jury trial or proof beyond a reasonable doubt — but at least that’s a judgment call. The mischaracterization of Justice Scalia’s and Justice Stevens’s position is clearly wrong.

Now I stress again: Errors are inevitable, even in the work of reputable news outlets. But this should be a further reminder not to believe everything you read, even in the major media, and even on objective matters where readers might expect there to be little dispute and little chance of error.

(I can’t speak to whether the error was originally Lazarus’s or CNN’s — I suspect the latter, but I’m not sure — but even if Lazarus misspoke, CNN is responsible for the errors of the sources it cites, especially when the information is easily verifiable.)

Note that the story is time-stamped Tuesday, July 6, so either CNN hasn’t noticed the error, or decided not to correct it.

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