Attorneys for Detainees Plan Fast Action

Government intelligence experts said the court's decision would have no impact on CIA operations, including its detentions of al Qaeda detainees in undisclosed locations. "The opinion is written narrowly only to refer to Guantanamo Bay," said one government lawyer in the intelligence arena. "As for people held by the agency or elsewhere, the case is silent on that."

The next step is for the U.S. government to outline formal procedures that would grant the Guantanamo Bay inmates access to U.S. courts that human rights lawyers have sought for more than two years. Experts speculated that these could be sessions at the prison on the U.S. Navy base in Cuba or in federal courthouses in this country.

But soon after the government files its response to the Supreme Court ruling, attorneys for the detainees said they will make their case in court. "Our position is that our clients did nothing to justify their detention," Margulies said. "The decision means the government now must justify their detention in federal court."

Thomas Wilner, a Washington lawyer for 12 Kuwaiti detainees, said he will file court papers "very quickly" to demand information on his clients' physical condition and to hold the required hearings.

Eugene R. Fidell, president of the nonprofit National Institute of Military Justice, said the decision may prompt the military to demonstrate publicly that its planned annual review panels for the detainees are fair and defensible. Attorneys for the detainees have contended that these reviews and the tribunals are skewed against prisoners. One military lawyer for a Guantanamo detainee who faces a tribunal has filed a petition in federal court seeking to halt the tribunals on the grounds that they violate U.S. and international laws.

"The Supreme Court decision will have a chastening effect on the government, reminding it that it must mind its p's and q's," he said.

It is not clear that all 595 detainees or their families have lawyers. Attorneys said yesterday that U.S. military officials should feel obligated under the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling to notify all detainees that they have won the right to hearings.

Defense lawyer Margulies said he will argue in future habeas hearings that the government should not be allowed to cite evidence gathered in interrogations in which "coercive" tactics were used. U.S. officials have acknowledged high-level approval was given at various times to use physical and psychological pressure in seeking information from Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decisions did not directly address the case of Ali S. Marri, a Qatari national designated as an enemy combatant by President Bush last year who is being held at the Navy brig in Charleston along with Hamdi and Padilla. U.S. officials suspect that Marri, who came to the United States as a student, is an al Qaeda operative.

His lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said he plans to file a motion in the next few weeks in South Carolina, arguing that his client deserves a day in court. Lustberg said he plans to cite yesterday's Hamdi and Guantanamo Bay decisions.

"We hope to see him as soon as possible . . . and to get all the rights that the Supreme Court has now accorded him," Lustberg said.

Staff writers Josh White, Dana Priest and Michelle Garcia contributed to this report.