Brandt Goldstein’s “Storming the Court”

“Hunger strike continues at Guantanamo Bay,” “U.S. denied Guantanamo Bay Prison Abuse,” “Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Seek U.S. Court Hearings”—these are just some of the headlines published in recent months regarding the alleged maltreatment of terror suspects being housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, many of whom have been held for three years without charge. Most were captured in the Afghanistan war, suspected of ties to al-Qaeda or the outed Taliban regime that sheltered the terrorist network. Such is the case in 2005. But in 1992, those faced with similar circumstanced were mostly from Haiti, and their only crime was being HIV-positive. In Brandt Goldstein’s Storming the Court (Scribner, September 2005; Hard-cover: $26), a group of Yale University’s law students sue the government to seek freedom for those Haitians, facing a myriad of legal obstacles along the way.