Con Law Profs, Scholars and Government Attorneys Unite Against Yoo

In the last 10 days, constitutional law professors, legal ethics experts and former government attorneys have banded together, through court filings, to fight Berkeley Law professor and so-called torture memoist John Yoo's appeal in the Padilla case (free reg. req.).

The three groups (comprised of names as notable as Erwin Chemerinsky, Deborah Rhode, Bruce Fein and Cruz Reynoso) are petitioning U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to reject Yoo's appeal (free reg. req.) in Padilla's suit against the professor, according to SFGate.

"It is the essential role of the judicial branch to prevent the 'war on terror' from becoming the blank check for official torture that Yoo and the United States (Justice Department) seek," nine constitutional law teachers told the court.

Yoo denies any wrongdoing and says he never authorized torture. He appealed Judge White's refusal to dismiss the Padilla suit, saying allowing it to proceed "would interfere with presidential war-making authority."

The government lawyer group, including Fein, told White that the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel is counted on to "candidly" tell the president when his office is taking unconstitutional action. Yoo, according to them, jeopardized this credibility. 

— Cynthia Foster

Comments

[Doomed to repeat]

Interesting WWII analogy, since Professor Yoo's justification is that in war time certain rights must give way. Professor Yoo's logic supports the Reich Laws, which the Nazis enacted to remove inconvenient human rights existing under the Weimar Republic. Professor Yoo's memo also advocated setting up a new tribunal system with minimal dure process, much like the Volksgerichtshof which was specially created to avoid the German constitutional protections.

[aj kutchins]

"Japs?" If this illiterate racist "Boalt77" actually graduated from my alma mater, I'm really embarassed. But doesn't Cal Law have any screening device for patently offensive comments?

[Cynthia]

Hey Aj, thanks for alerting me to the comment above. I've removed it.

[john]

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