The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 June 12, 2008 that federal judges have the authority to review the Pentagon’s detention of captives at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, through habeas corpus petitions.

Since then, the judges at the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. have been working through some 200 captives' lawsuits.

The scorecard so far: 8-31.

Federal judges have sided with the U.S. government and ruled against the habeas corpus petitions of eight detainees. The judges have ordered the government to arrange for the release of 31 others.

About 200 more detainees have lawsuits contesting their detention in the court pipeline.

To accommodate the caseload, the court:

--put a satellite receiver on the roof so captives could testify by video link from the prison camp 1,300 miles away;
--got more clerks trained and cleared to handle classified documents; got five more security officers to safeguard classified information;
--outsourced some non-Guantánamo cases to federal judges in Maryland and West Virginia;
--and installed a Guantánamo-specific safe and classified computer for each of the 14 judge's chambers.

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From left, U.S. District Court Judges Ellen Segal Huvelle, Gladys Kessler, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, Richard J. Leon, James Robertson and Ricardo Urbina, are the first six of the 14 judges at the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. to rule on the Guantánamo habeas corpus petitions.

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The habeas rulings to date: