Court won't block extradition of former Panamanian leader Noriega

The Supreme Court on Monday refused the request of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to block his extradition to France, where he faces drug charges similar to those that have kept him in a U.S. prison.

The court gave no reason for turning down the appeal, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia objected. They said the case of Noriega, the only person being held as a prisoner of war by the United States, raises important questions about how the courts should handle cases arising from the government's attempt to prosecute terrorists.

"Providing that guidance in this case would allow us to say what the law is without the unnecessary delay and other complications that could burden a decision on these questions in Guantanamo or other detainee litigation arising out of the conflict with Al Qaeda," Thomas wrote.

As the justices prepared for their midterm break, they decided not to do anything in another important case. The court indicated it was not ready to reexamine a decision announced at the end of last term that said defendants have the right to challenge crime-lab results by questioning the analysts who prepared them.

The pivotal justice in the new case, from Virginia, was Sonia Sotomayor. Monday's decision indicates that she either agrees with last term's decision or thinks more time is needed to judge the consequences of the ruling before reconsidering it.

Noriega was ousted after the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. He was convicted of drug racketeering and other charges in 1992, and was sentenced to prison. The judge in that trial also declared him a prisoner of war.

Just before his sentence ended in 2007, the United States filed papers supporting France's request that he be extradited there to face drug charges. Courts there had convicted him in absentia, but France promised a new trial.

Noriega contended the Geneva Conventions meant that prisoners of war had to be returned to their home countries. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta said federal law did not allow Noriega to rely on the treaties to challenge the extradition, and that is the ruling the Supreme Court decided not to review.

Thomas and Scalia did not take a position on whether the lower court got it wrong. But they said the question was left unanswered in the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which established that Guantanamo detainees had the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.

The case is Noriega v. Pastrana.

The Virginia crime-lab case involved issues that seemed to have been resolved in last year's decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. Scalia wrote for a five-member majority, saying the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that the accused be able to confront witnesses also covers those who prepare lab results.

Now-retired Justice David H. Souter was part of the majority in the earlier case, and prosecutors had hoped that his replacement, Sotomayor, would see things differently.

In the Virginia case, Mark A. Briscoe and Sheldon A. Cypress were indicted on charges of cocaine possession in separate incidents. Each objected to the admission of a state lab report identifying the white substance in his possession as cocaine, because the person who conducted the test was not called to testify. The Virginia Supreme Court upheld their convictions.

But after a full briefing and oral arguments two weeks ago, the Supreme Court on Monday said in a one-sentence order that it was sending the case back to the Virginia court, to be reviewed in light of the Melendez-Diaz decision.

While important to Briscoe and Cypress, the Virginia court's decision will not have much impact. The commonwealth changed its law soon after the Melendez-Diaz decision in a way that Scalia said during oral arguments "complies completely."

The case is Briscoe v. Virginia.