Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Padilla v. Yoo:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_12_30-2008_01_05.shtml#1199480622
Via [1]How Appealing comes news that Jose Padilla is suing John Yoo. A
press release announcing the suit declares:
John Yoo, the author of legal memos that gave the go-ahead for
government agents to use torture against terrorism suspects, was
sued this morning in federal court in San Francisco. The lawsuit
was brought by Jose Padilla, an American citizen seized from a
civilian setting and interrogated for years in a military prison,
and his mother, Estela Lebron. The lawsuit claims that Yoo, then a
senior lawyer in the Justice Department, purported to provide legal
justifications for torture. This is the first lawsuit against Yoo
seeking to hold him accountable for the suffering unleashed by his
'Torture Memos.' Yoo's memos justified and set in motion the use of
harsh and illegal interrogation methods not only abroad -- in
places like Guantanamo Bay and the secret CIA 'black sites,' -- but
also here in the United States.
The Chicago Tribune provides [2]this additional background on the
suit, and How Appealing has posted the complaint [3]here. The
complaint only seeks nominal damages and a declaration that Yoo
authorized illegal and/or unconstitutional detention policies. Even
so, I would be surprised were this suit to get all that far.
References
1. http://howappealing.law.com/010408.html#031124
2.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-padilla080104,1,6749180.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
3. http://howappealing.law.com/PadillaVsYooComplaint.pdf
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