The conviction last week of 36-year-old Jose Padilla on terrorism-related conspiracy charges discredits those who sneered at the Bush administration's pursuit of this American jihadist and suggested he was never a threat.

But it also discredits the administration's handling of the Padilla case until recent months; he did not have to be held incommunicado for years, while being denied rights that should be available to every U.S. citizen.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other officials claimed that the struggle against al-Qaida warranted extraordinary measures, including the possibility of holding domestic terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

Some still defend that policy. But the government's victory ironically casts a shadow on that approach. In cases involving U.S. citizens such as Padilla, the civilian courts remain fully capable of dispensing justice.

During much of the five-plus years Padilla has been in custody, the government treated him as a non-person. He was detained as an "enemy combatant," denied the right to counsel, held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig, subjected to sensory and sleep deprivation - in other words, handled as a police state would deal with a political prisoner.

Thankfully, last year the U.S. Supreme Court approved his transfer to a federal lockup, where he was finally afforded the rights every U.S. citizen deserves.

Padilla was no Boy Scout, even if he was not quite the threat that the government originally pitched to the public - including the notion that he was plotting to unleash a "dirty bomb" on a major U.S. city.

The conviction shows that it is possible to try and win domestic terrorism cases in civilian courts without compromising national security and the rights of the accused. Those rights need protection even when the nation is at war.