ANALYSIS-US Supreme Court: Bush gun rights win, Guantanamo loss

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - The just-ended U.S. Supreme Court term gave President George W. Bush a historic victory on gun rights for Americans but handed him a bitter defeat on his war on terrorism policy regarding Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

As those two landmark 5-4 rulings illustrated, the nation's highest court remained closely divided between conservative and liberal factions, with Justice Anthony Kennedy often casting the decisive vote in the most important cases.

The court, in an opinion by Kennedy, outlawed the death penalty for child rapists. But in an earlier ruling it upheld the three-drug cocktail commonly used for lethal injections, ending a temporary nationwide moratorium on executions.

The court limited some securities fraud lawsuits and slashed the punitive damages that ExxonMobil Corp must pay for the 1989 oil spill off Alaska, but issued a series of pro-employee rulings on workplace discrimination.

Legal experts said the court under Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by Bush, still had an overall conservative bent in the 2007-08 term that ended on Thursday.

"We are still learning the personality of the Roberts court," said Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Last term, the court launched an aggressive assault on core principles affecting race and abortion.

"This term, the court generally spoke with a softer voice," he said. "Even when speaking softly, however, the court's instincts remain fundamentally conservative on most issues."

TRANSFORM LEGAL, POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Shapiro said the rulings on guns and the Guantanamo prisoners could transform the nation's legal and political landscape.

In a win for Bush, the court recognized, for the first time in American history, an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It rejected the argument that the right was tied to service in a state militia.

The court struck down two parts of the country's strictest gun control law adopted 32 years ago in Washington, D.C. -- a handgun ban and a requirement that firearms kept at home be unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.

But in a stinging rebuke for Bush, the court rejected a centerpiece of his policy in the war on terrorism for the detainees held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

In another opinion authored by the moderate conservative Kennedy, the court said the prisoners have the right to challenge before U.S. federal judges in Washington, D.C., their years of detention and to seek their release.

In balancing civil liberties versus national security, the opinion marked the fourth time the court had rejected Bush's policies in the war on terrorism adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks.

On other issues, the court's conservative majority held.