Padilla Brings Torture to Trial: Can a DOJ lawyer be held accountable for advocating the inhumane?

from In These Times:



Jose Padilla Brings Torture to Trial
Can a DOJ lawyer be held accountable for advocating the inhumane?
By Doug Cassel


When on Jan. 22 a federal court judge sentenced Jose Padilla to 17 years in prison for conspiracy to commit terrorism, it was a one-day story. But, in fact, the Padilla case goes on.

Padilla, a U.S. citizen and former Chicago gang member, alleges that he was tortured during the more than three and a half years he spent behind bars at a Navy brig in South Carolina. He is now suing John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who reportedly devised the legal theories to justify the interrogation techniques used against him.

While Padilla’s suit raises a number of constitutional claims—including that the military violated his rights to counsel and to exercise his Muslim religion—the heart of his argument is that Yoo gave legal advice to justify his torture, in violation of due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Padilla, who is separately appealing his recent conviction, asks the court to rule that his treatment violated the Constitution, and to order Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, to pay him $1 in damages.

The suit raises important questions of law and fact. Are lawyers liable for giving bad legal advice to federal officials?

In August 2002, Yoo, then an attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote a formal opinion letter advising that interrogation techniques are not torture unless they inflict pain equivalent to “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, later withdrew Yoo’s opinion.

Goldsmith, now a Harvard law professor, explains in his book, The Terror Presidency, that Yoo’s reasoning was “legally flawed” and “tendentious.” It seemed “more an exercise of sheer power than reasoned analysis.” Even so, was it the proximate cause of any mistreatment of Padilla? .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3536/jose_padilla_brings_torture_to_trial/

I don't know how, I'm not a lawyer, but this Admin has found so many devious ways to protect, deflect, obfuscate and ignore these kinds of legal challenges. And torture is something they are fierce about circling the wagons.

This is an important case and I happily K&R but it my cynicism says that Yoo will never be held accountable. He's one of their special boys who provided them with all sorts of nefarious tricks - he's way too valuable for future dirty work to get tarnished with a trial like this.