Yoo bastard.

so?

Zed, baby!

Good One

LHP!

WHooHoo, I knew it was LHP without lookin’.

So close and yet, so far.

LHP,

Why is USA vs. Lee just coming out? I’ve never heard of it.

Snakes, vermin and cockroaches occupy the highest of moral high grounds in contrast to Yoo.

So ignorance of the law is an excuse sometimes?

Snakes, vermin and cockroaches occupy the highest of moral high grounds in contrast to Yoo.

Definitely a motherfucker, though.

LHP,

I’ve been lurking and reading your installments, so, first of all thank you for wading through this cesspool; second, what’s the take in real legal circles. Do real legal eagles ever sit around and form vigilante parties? Doesn’t a practitioner like Yoo set the profession back years?

So Yoo left this case out thinking nobody would ever notice?

cherrypicking…standard operating procedure for the BushCo crime syndicate.

but I keep saying this, the president has no rules, the supreme court will say he is imune, they will use the yoo memo, they will say their authority overides and lower court or presidence

they have no rules, they change the rules, they write the rules, they rewrite the rules

we are all acting as if the rules mean something to these people, the rules mean nothing, they own the playing field, they own the officials deciding the rules, they own the very game

we all know as a fact this is depraved, it is illegal and it is whatever you want to call it

but until yoo is disbarred and until the president is impeached where the crimes will be tried outside of the boundaries where the scotus decides, the president is in fact innocent

he is innocent until he is proven guilty and the courts will not find him guilty

they now have the power of the ring

Ignorant, so ignorant as to suggest ineligibility to teach law? Or does he reside in the utopia of the tenured?

So Yoo left this case out thinking nobody would ever notice?

Maybe Yoo didn’t do his homework. It would be typical BushCo arrogance.

Don’t forget to include the rules that Pelosi has chosen to ignore.

Ignorant, so ignorant as to suggest ineligibility to teach law? Or does he reside in the utopia of the tenured?

Yoo? Yup, he’s tenured.

That phrase “while acting under color of law” from Fitz is going to get quite a workout as folks unwind the Yoo Doctrine.

It’s just icing on the cake that the US Attorney prosecuting US v Lee was Daniel K. Hedges, a Reagan appointee now in private practice at Porter & Hedges. According to his bio there,

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Hedges served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas from 1981-1985. While in the Justice Department, Mr. Hedges, Dan Webb, and Rudolph Giuliani co-founded the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. He was selected as the Most Outstanding Young Lawyer in Texas for 1982-1983.

The wingnuts will have a hard time painting Hedges as a DFH with a bio like that.

Perhaps someone at the Houston Chronicle might want to give P&H a call to ask for a comment. (Spotlight, anyone?)

And so I say again (lordy, I am so tedious, I even bore myself sometimes) that BushCo resembles Calvinball every inch of the way. Remember Calvin and Hobbes? The wildly convoluted games they played wherein, no matter how scrupulously Hobbes abided by Calvin’s rules, there was always one more twist, one more change, one more deke that negated the tiger’s win.

Oh. Hi, everyone.

What johnSwifty said! Thanks a lot LHP, we really do appreciate all your time & effort on this, it has been most illuminating.

Thank you for bringing U.S. v. Lee to our attention. How would this case be applicable to Yoo since he did not personally engage in torturing any individuals?

RE: disbarment of the Bush Co lawyers.

What are the criteria? Who brings then and before what bar? In the beginning of the USA scandal, there was some discussion here and at TPM about Hans von Spakovsky’s actions meeting the GA criteria for moral turpitude.

IANAL, obviously, but disbarment of Yoo, Goodling, and Co. seems not only to be a worthy endeavor, but only a realizable one. As, alas, impeachment and war crimes are not(realizable).

If he used ANY of the current legal research systems (Lexis, Westlaw, or law clerk), he would have had to work hard to avoid bringing that case in any reasonable search. So he either saw it and ignored it or knew it was there and carefully searched to avoid it. I suspect the former.

Boxturtle (Picking & choosing is a time honored practice, but it doesn’t work well if the other side isn’t asleep. LHP never sleeps, I suspect)

Well, folks, nice hangin’ with y’all this afternoon. Off to see Kathleen Edwards play tonight. Toodles!

Woo Hooey! Go get ‘em, LHP!

THANK YOU for these posts. Valuable stuff to keep the bright lights shining into this awful administration’s darkest places.

And another thing . . . waterboarding in Texas??? On whose watch did that happen (1984)? Prior to Ann Richards. I have made it a point to not know Texas history ever since, oh, you know.

oh great - US v Lee, more FDL homework *g*

this old waitress digs the homework - you have me reading pdf’s Today’s Menu: Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act

yes (((Prof LHP))) - thank you for all your illuminating work on this

IANAL (obviously) but it seems that the US v Lee, similar to the Youngstown Steel, goes to the caliber of Yoo’s scholarly research rather than the hands-on participation we would expect.

College’s expect their tenured staff to do a valid and comprehensive level of research to support their writings. Yoo has obviously done neither research or appropriate application of the research conducted.

I’m not expressing myself well but I hope you get the point.

Evidently, The good senator, or someone on his staff, ran the phrase “water torture” through Lexis or Westlaw, and tah dah! there is was.

Nope, the cop in US v. Lee who tried that defense was CONVICTED

This appears to be a case against a county Sheriff and Deputies. Even with a good governor, there are many small town/small county machines where the local authorities operate in a near dictatorial fashion. And it often did take the Feds coming in to clean things up.

Right on point, LHP. And, now, expanding on the point of this (and prior) posts regarding the flaws and failings in the Yoo/Bybee memoranda, this post over at Balkin’s place. In it, they remind us (we lawyers likely didn’t need reminding, if we have a grain of professionalism left) about the distinctions between a survey of what the law is, as opposed to an instrumental analysis of the law, the latter being an answer to the question “what are the best arguments that can be used to further my client’s position/desires?”

The Yoo/Bybee memoranda are clearly a form of the latter masquerading as the former.

Cheney ought to find a job for that patriot. /s

Do real legal eagles ever sit around and form vigilante parties? Doesn’t a practitioner like Yoo set the profession back years?

Vigilante parties? Er, not so much, that’s going outside the law. We like to do things inside the law, not only for the highest ethical and moral reasons, but also because we wouldn’t want to put our entire profession out of business. *g*

And, yes, Yoo has set the profession back years, hell, he’s set humanity back years.

The discussion about US v. Lee has been out there for a while.

FWIW, there was also a case out of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, from back in the 20s or 30s, in which water-boarding generated confessions a white sheriff extracted from black men, and which were used to convict them of murder, were tossed on the grounds that the water-boarding was torture and the confessions obtained therefrom, inadmissible.

That case is missing, too.

You might be interested in these observations for Scott Horton, posting at Balkinization:

Only yesterday, I learned from one prominent figure that he had seen repeated drafts of the March 2003 Yoo opinion, had cautioned Yoo on serious errors in judgment and interpretation in the memo, and had strongly urged modification of the memo at least to reflect the contrary viewpoint, even if only to distinguish it. Yoo insisted that he wanted it to be “clean.” He declined to make any of the changes requested.

Similarly, Yoo was warned repeatedly that his views could not be squared with the overwhelming majority viewpoint in the community of law of war scholarship, and that the risk of criminal prosecution of those implementing his policies was severe. In response, Yoo stated that he was crafting his opinion consciously as a bulwark against future prosecution. Indeed, the March 2003 memorandum reflects that he had consulted and secured non-prosecution assurances from the Criminal Division headed by Michael Chertoff. This reassurances did not have their intended affect, however. A good part of his audience believed, correctly, that his attitudes and conduct actually undermined the validity of the opinion and would render it useless in the face of future prosecutions

The case involving the Sheriff, and a few other cases, were summarized in this short WaPo op piece titled, “Waterboarding Used to be a Crime“

Judge Evan Wallach is a former JAG.

Actually, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and the others hurt the profession, but if we play it right, it can be used to strengthen the profession.

I’m beginning to think he might have believed that these memos would never be declassified and no one with a working brain would ever get to read them.

This guy KNEW BETTER than to misquote, mis cite, leave out controlling authority, it had to be deliberate.

Whew. I was wondering how long we’d have to wait for another Yoo fix.

I would think Yoo had a staff he could call on to do any research, wouldn’t he? If so, certainly his staffer found this case and he decided to pretend like it didn’t exist. Or he knew about it and didn’t use staff, knowing they would find it.

Or perhaps one of the attorneys involved with US v Lee read the Yoo memo, was as appalled as the rest of us at its contents, remembered that case from 25 years ago, and thought to him/herself “I should really bring this old case to someone’s attention. But who?”

Let’s see . . . who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee? Leahy, Kennedy, Feinstein, Durbin, . . . wait a minute. What do we have here: Whitehouse — a senator who sits on both the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, and who served as both an appointed US attorney and elected state Attorney General? Sounds like just the person to call . . .

I agree with you. I guess I am overly anxious to hear about a case directed at Yoo.

This does look like an excellant case to use against the memos.

On Saturday, Senator Whitehouse said that one of the AUSA’s on the case is still in DOJ. Which makes Yoo’s omission almost comical, if it weren’t so tragic

Lee, Baker and Glover were waterboarders when waterboarding wasn’t cool. Now they’re post-9ll heroes. /s

Yoo’s “shaky figleaf”.. now that’s a scary image!

Ah - Found the reference. It’s here at “Is that Legal?”

The money quote - there were two cases from Mississippi - not one:

If It Was Torture in Mississippi, Then It’s Definitely Torture, Right?
* * *
Waterboarding, known ironically in earlier times as “the water cure”, remains — in the view of this administration and many supporters — not torture. And if it’s not torture, then it’s not cruel and unusual punishment or a violation of due process.

But here’s the rub.

In 1926, the Mississippi Supreme Court called the water cure torture. No qualifiers. No hedging. Just plain, good ol’ fashion torture . . . and therefore a forbidden means for securing a confession. These men were hardly a group I’d call *activist* or *liberal* and certainly not bent on subverting our country in the name of coddling criminals.

In a case called Fisher v. State, 110 So. 361, 362 (Miss. 1926), Mississippi’s highest court ordered the retrial of a convicted murderer because his confession was secured by a local sheriff’s use of the water cure.

Here’s the court:

The state offered . . . testimony of confessions made by the appellant, Fisher. . . [who], after the state had rested, introduced the sheriff, who testified that, he was sent for one night to come and receive a confession of the appellant in the jail; that he went there for that purpose; that when he reached the jail he found a number of parties in the jail; that they had the appellant down upon the floor, tied, and were administering the water cure, a specie of torture well known to the bench and bar of the country.

Fisher relied on a case called White v. State, 182, 91 So. 903, 904 (Miss. 1922), in which the court took — as I understand history in those parts — the unusual step of reversing the murder conviction of a young African-American male, charged with killing a white man (it appears), because his confession was secured by *the cure*. The court said:

. . . [T]he hands of appellant were tied behind him, he was laid upon the floor upon his back, and, while some of the men stood upon his feet, Gilbert, a very heavy man, stood with one foot entirely upon appellant’s breast, and the other foot entirely upon his neck. While in that position what is described as the “water cure” was administered to him in an effort to extort a confession as to where the money was hidden which was supposed to have been taken from the dead man. The “water cure” appears to have consisted of pouring water from a dipper into the nose of appellant, so as to strangle him, thus causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing a confession. Under these barbarous circumstances the appellant readily confessed . . .

If “the cure” was seen as a barbarous form of torture in Mississippi in the 1920’s, I guess I’m at a loss to understand exactly how our attitudes about the process have progressed to see it as an acceptable means of interrogation 80 years later.

It would not be directly applicable to Yoo per se, it stands for the proposition that waterboarding IS torture.

It’s an actual criminal case that says waterboarding is torture, all Yoo had for authority for his crazy opinion was a medical reimbursement statute on when you can go to the ER w/o a prior authorization. tells you just how crappy Yoo’s scholarship was.

Nope, it shows that he KNOWS that waterboaring is torture, but lied in his memo which puts him in line for showing the necessary state of mind or mens rea for an Alstoetter type prosecution.

I can’t take credit for this one, It was gift from Sheldon Whitehouse, let’s give the boy a hand.

[Clapping madly]

look at mine at 49

So does this mean that, although none of the principals involved, except possibly Addington and Ashcroft (?), are lawyers, the 81 page Yoo memorandum does not give the others the cover they were looking for when they discussed getting “the lawyers” to sign off on this stuff? What all went on after that Comey trip to the hospital? Did all the illegal stuff come to an abrupt halt? I don’t think so. Is there any proof that anything stopped at all? Anything in writing, that is?

Well, I didn’t mean ‘vigilante’ in the Pace Picante, “New Jersey! Get a rope,” vein. I mean more in terms of the natural occurrence with professional circles whereby the guy who pisses in the pool is black balled. The idea that this psycho would ever have the ability to stand before a classroom of law students and spout his dreck just infuriates me all over again. Do legal circles form cabalistic, unspoken agreements to just not hire such a dangerous practitioner of the art?

At trial, Baker’s defense as developed by his counsel and his testimony rested on two points. The first was that he actively participated in only a single torture episode, and then only because ordered to do so by his superiors–a “Nuremberg defense.” The second was that while he believed the torture of prisoners immoral, he did not at the time think it was illegal.

Ah, but wait just a minute. We now have Section 1004 of John McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act of 2005:

SEC. 1004. PROTECTION OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL ENGAGED IN AUTHORIZED INTERROGATIONS.

(a) Protection of United States Government Personnel- In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent’s engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States, its interests, or its allies, and that were officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted, it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.

So today Baker’s defense would hold water, so to speak.

OT - but maybe not entirely. here are three of the congressional hearings scheduled for tomorrow. i’d love to see those testifying asked some good questions about our torture regime.

9:30 am – House Armed Services
Building Partnership Capacity and Development of the Interagency Process.
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
Michael G. Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

1 pm - House Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
Hearing on H.R. 3189, the “National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007”
as reported by the ACLU, witnesses will include:
Glenn Fine, DOJ Inspector General
Valerie Caproni, FBI General Counsel
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project

2:30 pm - Senate Foreign Relations
To hold hearings to examine protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949….
John B. Bellinger, Legal Adviser, Department of State
Charles A. Allen, Deputy General Counsel, International Affairs, Department of Defense
Brigadier General Michelle D. Johnson, Deputy Director for the War on Terrorism and Global Effects, J-5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, Joint Staff

O/T Followup:
Rep. Davis (R-KY) Apologizes For Calling Obama “That Boy”

instrumental analysis of the law, the latter being an answer to the question “what are the best arguments that can be used to further my client’s position/desires?”

The Yoo/Bybee memoranda are clearly a form of the latter masquerading as the former.

And yet with even the most cursory examination those arguments fail horribly. Yoo didn’t even manage to craft a credible fig leaf.

Which is why the coming untimely demise of their respective careers will be usable as a teaching point for lawyers and law students, about whoring themselves out to the whimsy of their clients.

Clapping with one hand; I’m still upset about Senator Whitehouse’s support of retroactive immunity for the telecom giants.

But, yes, this is an excellent find. As is the Mississippi case scribe cites at 49.

Both of which yield a single question for Yoo: “Did you know about these cases?” If the answer is yes, then omitting them is clearly legal malpractice. If the answer if no, then Yoo is incompetent.

I’d say the ball is back in Dean Edley’s court.

Not under Altstoetter, it wouldn’t.

Thanks for expanding the thought. I see know that U.S. vs. Lee is one facet of building a case against Yoo.

a bit O/T, but Tweety is on now restating the “Bitter” meme. I am getting to the point where Clinton is going over the top. Her race to be have that annointment confirmed, is getting to the point where I am not so sure that I would vote for her in the General (and certainly not for McVain).

She’s about one-half step away from going over the top… and when she does, the shark has not just been jumped it’s been pole-vaulted over.

Offered without additional comment:

LHP’s title: The Yoo Memo Part VI - Another Case He Did Not Cite

LHP’s first words: “In the second part of this series . . .”

I just know I’ll be disappointed but should I watch anyway?

Actually, there was some talk this weekend that the Yoo memos were not even seen by very many folks within DOJ. Yoo didn’t have the prospect of his peers laughing at him. He didn’t have the prospect of the public bench and bar laughing at him, these memos were TOOO SECRET.

lhp, just want to say thank you for this series. hope you can keep thinking up ways to write about it.. and so help keep the story alive.

Oh, and Tweety is an asshole.

yes.

because i will be and misery loves company. *g*

Clapping with one hand

That’s so Zen, Teddy…

John Yoo tenses hard
“‘US v. Lee,’ you tell me?”
“Time you left my team…”

Yeah, but that was a state court and not binding on the feds. The thing I like about US v. Lee, is that is federal appellate law

yep and always will be. just think, no chance of redemption. :)

And it was prosecuted by Reagan republicans.

lhp, let me add my voice to the chorus of thank yous for this series. thank you for explaining these legal issues to us non-lawyers in terms that we can understand.

When will Conyer and Leahy call Yoo to Congress and ask him WTF he was smoking when he wrote that crap?

Whitehouse would have a field day at that hearing.

That’s what we are hoping to have declassified.

Folks I truly believe that it is necessary to get out into the open EVERY bit of the infection that has spread through DOJ. Sunlight is the best medicine, it is that way that the faith and confidence of the American people will be restored.

There are some who have been critical of whistleblowers saying they bring shame upon the Department by airing the dirty linen.

No, it is those who soiled the linen in the first place who brought shame upon the Department and those who would air this linen in sunlight will thereby cleanse it

A chorus of thank yous, followed by a crescendo of spank Yoos!

Do legal circles form cabalistic, unspoken agreements to just not hire such a dangerous practitioner of the art?

I don’t know if you were around the last few days when we found out that there aren’t any law firms willing to hire Alberto Gonzales, so yeah, I would say the legal profession is gearing up for some shunning (at least I hope it is)

Beloved Leader is at 28%. Woot!

I hope they do, but Nancy’s strategy is to sit quietly and wait. She’ll be doing that while the Republics blame the Democratic majority for all of the economic problems of today.

okay will do
come tuesday, comiseration time

Tweety is an asshole.

And not just any asshole, but a true gaper…

On Saturday, Senator Whitehouse said that one of the AUSA’s on the case is still in DOJ. Which makes Yoo’s ommision almost comical, if it weren’t so tragic

but looseheadprop, that is the very point, yoo could not have possibly written such a pedestrion opinion if he had any inkling it would not be held up by the scotus

all that matters is that he wrote it and the scotus will allow for dispensation “because of it”

they can make, break, rewrite, and create from whole cloth any rule, any law, any presedent they want

I want to repost what I posted before

we are under some kind of assumption the rules still matter, they unequivocally do not

imagine you and I are playing tennis and I not only have the official in my pocket but I don’t care what anyone thinks, nor does the official

well, I am going to hit the ball on two bounces, the official will first claim it was one bounce, when he is shown the video tape that I hit the ball on two bounces he will say, “but I already ruled and what I ruled goes”

then, the next time I hit the ball on two bounces the official will say;

“well, he did it before, there is no reason I am going to stop him this time around”

they are making it up as they go, they are making it up as they need it made up, they are brazen, they are depraved, they are sociopaths

the sociopathy they are demonstrating though is not that of someone born with the disorder, it is not chronic;

“it is because it is”

they aquired the power they have the power they are going to continue to use the power, it is what it is

they are now the lord of the ring

I guess I forgot that Bert was a lawyer.

What are the criteria? Who brings then and before what bar? In the beginning of the USA scandal, there was some discussion here and at TPM about Hans von Spakovsky’s actions meeting the GA criteria for moral turpitude.

I believe the criteria is easily satisfied since yoo gave instruction to break the law, I don’t have the protocol for disbarment but I am pretty sure those criteria are easily met

it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.

Yes, but don’t most people of ordinary sense and understanding know that these practices are unlawful? I certainly do, and the only law I know is the eggshell skull theory. So, even though this clause is in the Defense of Torture Act, it shouldn’t actually provide an cover to the practitioners of cover.

There are also the war crimes trials of Japanese for waterboarding after the Second World War. Perhaps the best known is US v. Shigeru Sawada but there is also this one.

In United States of America v. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata, and Takeo Kita (U.S. Military Commission, Yokohama, 1-28 May, 1947. NARA Records, NND 735027 RG 153, Entry 143 Box 1025):

The charge and specifications against Hata were:
Charge: That the following member of the Imperial Japanese Army with his then known title: Seitaro Hata, Surgeon First Lieutenant, at the times and places set forth in the specifications hereto attached, and during a time of war between the United States of America and its Allies and Dependencies, and Japan, did violate the Laws and Customs of War.
Specification 3. That in or about July or August, 1943, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number Three, Fukuoka ken, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Seitaro Hata, did willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Morris O. Killough, an American Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils.
Specification 5. That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number Three, Fukuoka ken, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Seitaro Hata, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them; by forcing water into their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.
1st Lt Seitero Hata was convicted and sentenced to 25 years hard labor.

The charge and specifications against Asano were:
Charge: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asana, then a civilian serving as an interpreter with the Armed Forces of Japan, a nation then at war with the United States of America and its Allies, did violate the Laws and Customs of War.
Specification 1: That in or about July or August, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Morris O. Killough, an American Prisoner of War, by beating and kicking him; by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils.
Specification 2: That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating and kicking them, by forcing water into their mouths and noses; and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.
Specification 5. That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 December, 1943, the accused Yukio Asano, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture John Henry Burton, an American Prisoner of War, by beating him; and by fastening him head downward on a stretcher and forcing water into his nose.
Yukio Asano, a civilian, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

The charge and specifications against Kita were:
Charge: That the following member of the Imperial Japanese Army with his the known title: Takeo Kita, Sergeant Major, at the times and places set forth in the specifications hereto attached, and during a time of war between the United States…. and Japan, did violate the Laws and Customs of War.
Specification 2: That between 1 April, 1943 and 31 August, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Takeo Kita, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture John Henry Burton, an American Prisoner of War, by beating him and by forcing water into his nose.
Specification 4: That on or about 15 May, 1944, at Fukoka Prisoner of War Branch Camp Number 3, Kyushu, Japan, the accused Takeo Kita, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O Cash and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War by beating them, forcing water into their mouths and noses, and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.
Sgt Major Kita, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

Genji Mineno, a civilian employee of the Japanese Imperial Army, was tried separately for the same sequence of events in a separate trial in Yokohama (Military Commission Case Docket No 47 Tried at Yokohama 25-28 June, 1946. NARA NND 735027 Record Group 153, Entry 145, Box 151). The charges and specifications were:
Charge: That between 1 Feb 1943 and 1 Sept 1945 at POW Camp No. 3, Kokura, Fukuoka, Japan, Genji Mineno…did willfully and unlawfully commit cruel, inhuman and brutal acts, atrocities and other offenses against certain American and Allied Prisoners of War, in violation of the Laws and Customs of War.
Specification 5. That in or about August, 1943, the accused, Genji Mineno, together with other persons did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture George De Witt Stoddard and William O. Cash, American Prisoners of War, by strapping them to a stretcher and pouring water down their nostrils.
Specification 9. That in or about 15 May, 1944, the accused, Genji Mineno, did, willfully and unlawfully, brutally mistreat and torture Thomas B. Armitage, William O. Cash, and Munroe Dave Woodall, American Prisoners of War, by beating and kicking them, by forcing water into their mouths and noses, and by pressing lighted cigarettes against their bodies.

http://www.woodenboat.com/foru.....stcount=27

based on

http://www.pegc.us/archive/Art.....061016.pdf

According to the WaPo, Yoo has “made clear he would prefer not to appear” at hearings on Capitol Hill. That new subpoena option, “ignorability” that comes bundled with the power windows. If Miers and Bolten can do it, Yoo can too.

beloved? somehow ‘other’ words come to mind

Yeah, I fear you’re right. Nancy is one who could give a shit what the “average” American thinks as long as she gets support from her rich friends and gets to keep her seat in Congress. She not only needs firing, she needs unemployment and bankruptcy. Then maybe she’d have an appreciation for the crap she’s allowed to go on in this country.

true, but it’s also true that anytime there’s a finding that directly on point, and it’s unchallenged for that long, I’d have a strong argument that judicial notice (in the courtroom) and even-an-idiot-masquerading-as-a-law-professor writing a memo would have to address the finding.
Between tossing convictions (plural - there were two separate cases) because the confessions were gained through what the court found (as a fact) was torture, on the one hand, and convicting later practitioners of that torture of civil rights violations - I’d say Yoo/Bybee’s research skills were lacking.

So lacking, that they wouldn’t pass the first-year writing class I once taught.

and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.

that AND is very important. it means a two pronged test and the defendant has to satisfy both prongs: 1) didn’t know it was illegal (subjective test) plus
2) A sane person would not believe it was unlawful (objective test)

When it comes to waterboarding what jury will believe that the interrogator has made out the objective test? Really now?

It’s like the judge in the AT&T illegal wiretap case saying that whatever the secret memo was that the telcos are saying they relied upon, the memo is such crap (I’m betting another Yoo product) that no reasonable person would ever rely on it.

You don’t need a legal memo to tell you waterboarding is torture, all you need are eyes to watch the body writhe, and ears to hear the screams turn into gurgles.

I should add

Genji Meneno, another civilian, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years hard labor.

“Beloved” in that Kim Jong Il sense… LOL

Shirley Golub {audio}

Cindy Sheehan

Wow… I just learned that McVain “joined Democrats on Judicial Nominees”. Really? Seems that Roberts and Alito made it to The Court somehow….

I was referring to an earlier part of the series where we talked about a case he did not cite, which is why the title of this part is “ANOTHER case he did not cite”

Thank you for bringing U.S. v. Lee to our attention. How would this case be applicable to Yoo since he did not personally engage in torturing any individuals?

yoo gave legal advice that instructed the president that it is fine to torture, that he has imperial rule.

I do believe this must be some kind of crime, ianal either but man, if this is not a crime then I can tell someone to kill someone else and that the murder is legal and I am not culpable

yoo really must be disbarred, all his our base now belong to the ama, they must disbar yoo if we are not going to impeach the presdident