Appeals Court Rules Against Closed Sept. 11 Hearings (washingtonpost.com): A federal appeals court Monday ruled that the Bush administration violated the Constitution by holding secret immigration hearings for a figure under investigation in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Well, well.

According to the Detroit News, the panel decision was unanimous. That has to distress the administration slightly; not even a vague dissent to hang an appeal on.

And make no mistake: they will appeal. At this point, as I understand it, there are two choices: they can either request a hearing from the full Court of Appeals bench -- not particularly likely, really, given that there was no dissent -- or they can appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Unless there's some virtue in delay, I would expect the latter to be the approach taken by the administration.

As for the Court itself ... hard to tell, really. My very general sense is that they might want to duck this case for the moment, since all sorts of terrorism cases are headed up the pike. Then again, this one contains issues completely unrelated to the others.