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Judge Rules that Jose Padilla Can Sue John Yoo

180px-john-yooJosé_Padilla U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White has cleared the way for Jose Padilla to sue University of California Professor John Yoo for the violation of his rights due to his physical abuse as a detainee. It is a relatively novel ruling that holds that government lawyers must be treated as other officials in participating in illegal programs or policies.

Padilla is currently serving time for supporting terrorists and conspiring to commit murder. He argued that Yoo’s memos violated Geneva Convention bans on physical abuse. Judge White held that “[l]ike any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct. The specific designation as an enemy combatant does not automatically eviscerate all of the constitutional protections afforded to a citizen of the United States.”

The Court granted dismissal of that part of the complaint that alleged violations of the privilege against self-incrimination. However, Padilla is given leave to file a new amended complaint to add the needed factual basis for the dismissed claim.

Despite the continued refusal of the Obama Administration to investigate the alleged war crimes of Bush administration in its torture program, Judge White found no ambiguity in the law or their meaning:

First, the basic facts alleged in the complaint clearly violate the rights afforded to citizens held in the prison context. The complaint alleges that military agents entered a civilian jail, seized a citizen from the civilian justice system, transported him to a military brig, detained him there indefinitely without criminal charge or conviction, deprived him of contact with anyone, including attorneys or family, removed the basic ability to practice his religion, and subjected him to a program of extreme interrogations, sensory deprivation and punishment over a period of three years and eight months. The specific designation as an enemy combatant does not automatically eviscerate all of the constitutional protections afforded to a citizen of the United States. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002) (“officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances”); Phillips, 477 F.3d at 1079-1080 (holding that the fact that no case has found a constitutional violation under the exact facts alleged does not imply that the law is not clearly established); Giebel v. Sylvester, 244 F.3d 1182, 1189 (9th Cir. 2001) (holding that a right can be clearly established on the basis of common sense in the absence of precedent directly on point).

The case is Padilla v. Yoo, 08-00035, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

For a copy of the amended complaint, click here.

For a copy of the opinion, click here.

For the full story, click here and here

35 thoughts on “Judge Rules that Jose Padilla Can Sue John Yoo”

  2. No, it’d be you making the assumption, fascist.

    The fallacy of petitio principii involves circular logic. There is no circle in that corruption stems from the nexus of legislation/campaign finance and corporate graft. It’s the direct causal connection.

    Corruption is caused by improper influence on the system usually through graft and bribery although coercion is not unknown.

    If you want to reduce corruption, you must reduce the influence of money on the systems.

    The system flaw described is circular in nature, but the causation is linear.

    If you have a problem with that logic, that’s be your problem, Mr. Doesn’t Know His Basic Terminology. But if you think there is an error in my logic, I’ll be glad to feed you your face.

  4. When I saw this story yesterday, I posted to a different Yoo thread.

    It was one of only two times I’ve ever been actually angry when posting.

    And I don’t mean a little bit either. Screw Obama and his torture endorsing fascist bullshit. He’s now a bigger joke than even Bush. Why? Because at least Bush stole his elections. He was a fraud from day one. This jackass is doing the exact opposite of why people voted for him.

    At this point I wish the birthers weren’t manifestly insane.

    The Obama White House gets . . . the finger.

    I’ll be dying a citizen of another country at this rate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My loyalty to this country ends when the Constitution ends. If you don’t hold those who ordered torture (and those who backed them) accountable and ACTUALLY punish them, you might as well go set a match to the original Constitution.

    Go on. Burn the damn thing. You just drove a stake through it’s heart, so finish the job. Cut off the head and desecrate the corpse. Oh, I keep forgetting. Washington’s road to Hell isn’t just paved in corporate greed, but done by people with a half-assed work ethic.

    Bush put the Constitution in critical condition. Obama seems intent on smothering the patient to death. Fascism is fascism no matter what party is driving it. I hope the bastard chokes on his corporate campaign contributions (just like EVERY ONE OF YOU GRAFT SWILLING ASSHATS IN DC).

    Thanks for killing the document my family has bled for and died defending, Mr. Not A Valid President Any More Than Bush. If I knew the Prof. wouldn’t delete it? I have a tapestry of profanity for you that would melt your monitors and put Darrin McGavin to shame. And it’s got Obama’s name all over it.

    It’s time for BOTH parties to go. Sitting pols from both parties should be stripped from the system along with their lobbyist paymasters like a cancer. Isolated, excised and discarded like the out of control trash they are.

  5. Well, I thought he would lose judicially, not that the prosecution would be undermined by its bosses.

    This worse, as due process was really shortcircuited.

    To get an idea of what immunity jurisprudence is like, a government actor can do just about any outrageous faux pas, and as long as he he did was pursuant to furthering an act under his job description, it is immune.

    Absolute judicial immunity is even more outrageous.

  6. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, a finding under the torture statute requires a finding of specific intent. If the specific intent was to extract information from an unlawful enemy combatants, the knowledge of the anticpated effect that he would be discomforted would be only a general intent that would be insufficient under the torture statute. Lack of criminal liability under the torture statute would seem to me to make it difficult to find civil liability on the part of Yoo.

  8. This is the most scary part of the whole travesty:

    “… all “matters of war and national security” that are beyond judicial authority.”

    That argument is profoundly anti Constitutional. The executive and his minions are not a law unto themselves. They are subject to our laws and I hope the court slaps them down very hard on the matter. I also hope all the victims of torture receive justice.

  11. Mike,

    How do you establish Yoo’s bad intent. Under Ex parte Quirin in WWII and more recent terrorist cases under the AUMF the law of war is applicable and Padilla is an unlawful enemy combatant who may be detained without trial so long as a competent tribunal makes a determination of his enemy combatant status.

    Ex parte Quirin also established that unlawful enemy combatants need not be captured on the battlefield. None of the eight Ex parte Quiring defendants were. It also established that US citizens may be classified as unlawful enemy combatants. Two of the eight were US citizens. All were initially sentenced to death by a military commission. Two of the sentences were later changed to long terms of imprisonment.

    It is also perfectly clear that an unlawful enemy combatant may be subject to coercive interrogation short of torture. Yoo’s definition of torture appears to follow the dictionary definition.

    How do you make that into what you suggest is “garbage”?

    webrand

  12. Miguel, your argument assumes what is actually the crux of the dispute concerning Mr. Yoo’s “legal opinion.” There are many people (I include myself), who have reviewed Mr. Yoo’s work and concluded that he did not render good faith opinions, but instead created indefensible garbage to provide cover for the implementation of policies which he knew to be unlawful and which the Bush adminstration intended to pursue regardless of their legality. Personally, I would be quite happy to submit to a jury the question of whether Mr. Yoo “merely gave a legal opinion.”

  13. No way, Jose!

    The facts alleged:
    “military agents entered a civilian jail, seized a citizen from the civilian justice system, transported him to a military brig, detained him there indefinitely without criminal charge or conviction, deprived him of contact with anyone, including attorneys or family, removed the basic ability to practice his religion, and subjected him to a program of extreme interrogations, sensory deprivation and punishment over a period of three years and eight months.”

    Yoo did none of these things, nor did he authorize, order or supervise them. He merely gave a legal opinion. He did not have the power or authority to order these things. Perhaps, his client, the U.S., could sue him for malpractice, but a third party malpractice lawsuit seems a bit over-reaching. Besides, Padilla wasn’t tortured. If you want to see torture, watch an Al Qaeda video while they saw through a prisoner’s neck. You wins on qualified immunity …

    Miguel, Esq.

  14. Padilla is an unlawful enemy combatant –” an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, [is a] familiar example[s] of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals. ex parte Quirin 317 U.S. 1 (1942) These need not be captured on the battlefield – the ex parte Quirin defendants were not.

    They are not judged under the principles of criminal law but under the law of war. Two of the unlawful enemy combatants in ex parte Quirin were US citizens. Before Judge White denied Yoo’s motion to dismiss, he should have found that Padilla’s rights under the law of war, as an unlawful enemy combatant, protected him from aggressive interrogation. He could not because the Geneva convention only protects “lawful enemy combatants” from questioning other than name, rank and serial number, not unlawful enemy combatants.

    It seems to me that Judge White has to find at the very least that Yoo was wrong on the law, under lAW of war principles not criminal law principles, before denying his motion to dismiss, but moreover he should find for Yoo’s lack of personal liability unless Yoo,in giving his legal opinion, was disingenuous. I think the ruling will be reversed on appeal.

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