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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS AND LAWYERS WHO WROTE TORTURE MEMOS
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS AND LAWYERS WHO WROTE TORTURE MEMOSISSUES WHITE PAPER ON TORTURE LIABILITY
Contacts:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 858-204-3565
Jeanne Mirer, NLG International Committee, mirerfam@earthlink.net; 313-515-2046
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos, which purported to give objective legal advice, subject all those involved to prosecution under international and U.S. domestic law. This includes people who ordered the torture, approved it or gave advice to justify it.
Guild President Marjorie Cohn testified on May 6 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee, that some lawyers in the Department of Justice were "part of a common plan to violate U.S. and international laws outlawing torture."
The 14-page White Paper details the ways in which the lawyers, including Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and William Haynes, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes. The lawyers said that the Department of Justice would not enforce federal laws against torture, maiming, assault and stalking. "Just because the statute says," John Yoo explained in a recent Esquire interview, "that doesn't mean you have to do it."
Professor Cohn told the congressmen it was "reasonably foreseeable" the lawyers' advice "would result in great physical and mental harm or death to many detainees"; more than 100 have died, many from torture. Torture, like genocide, slavery and wars of aggression, is absolutely prohibited at all times. No country can ever pass a law that would allow them.
Professor Philippe Sands, a British international litigator and author of the new book, "Torture Team," also testified at the congressional hearing. He said that after his extensive interviews with many Bush officials, including John Yoo, "it became clear to me that the Administration has spun a narrative that is false, claiming that the impetus for the new interrogation techniques came from the bottom-up. That is not true; the abuse was a result of pressure and actions driven from the highest levels of government."
It was recently revealed that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft met in the White House and personally oversaw and approved the torture by authorizing specific torture techniques including waterboarding. President Bush admitted he knew and approved of their actions.
"They are all liable under the War Crimes Act and the Torture Statute," Professor Cohn testified. "Under the doctrine of command responsibility, commanders, all the way up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief, are liable for war crimes if they knew or should have known their subordinates would commit them, and they did nothing to stop or prevent it. The Bush officials ordered the torture after seeking legal cover from their lawyers."
The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute the high officials of the Bush administration and the lawyers who advised them, for their roles in misusing the rule of law and legal analysis to justify torture and other crimes.
The White Paper can be read at http://nlg.org/news/statements/NLGWhitePaper_Yoo.doc
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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD PRESIDENT TO TESTIFY ON TORTURE LIABILITY AT HEARING BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, libertad48@san.rr.com, 858-204-3565
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org; 212-679-5100, x11
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD PRESIDENT TO TESTIFY ON TORTURE LIABILITY AT HEARING BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn will provide testimony at a hearing titled “From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules,” before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing will begin at 10:00 a.m. at 2141 Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.
Cohn is a Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, in which she documents the illegal policy of torture established by high officials of the Bush administration and lawyers in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, including former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.
Yoo was also invited to testify at Tuesday's hearing but declined the invitation.
Testimony will also be provided by Philippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at the University College London. Sands authored the book, Lawless World, in which he accuses George W. Bush and Tony Blair of conspiring to invade Iraq in violation of international law.
On April 9, 2008 the National Lawyers Guild called for John Yoo to be tried as a war criminal and for the University of California Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law to dismiss him for conspiring to facilitate the commission of war crimes. The Guild also called on Congress to repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005.
Cohn said, "John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act." See Cohn's article at http://marjoriecohn.com/2008/04/center- ... ghts.html.
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES ISRAEL TO PERMIT RICHARD FALK TO ENTER ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 23, 2008Contact:
David Gespass, NLG International Committee, thepasss@aol.com, 205-323-5966 or 205-566-2530
Jeanne Mirer , NLG International Committee, mirerfam@earthlink.net, 212-473-8700
Abdeen Jabara, NLG International Committee, amjabara@aol.com
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD URGES ISRAEL TO PERMIT RICHARD FALK TO ENTER ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
New U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Barred from Entry
New York. The National Lawyers Guild calls on Israel to permit Richard Falk, an eminent and widely-respected law professor and scholar, to enter Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories it seized forty years ago and has held illegally ever since. Professor Falk was recently appointed as the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Israel has barred entry to Professor Falk, claiming he cannot be fair because of his prior condemnation of persistent and pervasive human rights violations carried out by Israel in the Occupied Territories. In fact, Professor Falk made no claims any different from those made by John Dugard, the man he was to replace, in several reports on conditions in the Occupied Territories.
The National Lawyers Guild is familiar with the Israeli practice of avoiding criticisms of its practices. The Guild has sent several delegations to the Middle East to investigate conditions there. The Israeli government has refused to meet with the Guild’s delegates because of their claimed hostility to the State of Israel. In fact, Guild delegations, like Professor Falk, are hostile only to violations of human rights and international law.
Over the years Israel has sought to deny admission to a host of academics, activists, and political figures, former President Jimmy Carter being the most recent. Others are subjected to long processing delays and humiliating body searches. A 1977 National Lawyers Guild Delegation to the Middle East saw four of its members singled out for strip searches. Many others had research and written materials confiscated either upon entry or leaving the country.
Professor Falk is not unlike many others, including Mr. Dugard, who have criticized the horrendous Israeli human rights record that has continued for more than forty years. It is this ongoing and escalating practice of human rights violations which Israel carries out with the blessing of the United States despite condemnation by the rest of the world that Israel must confront. It cannot do so, and should not be permitted to do so, by excluding its critics.
Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON BOALT HALL TO DISMISS LAW PROFESSOR JOHN YOO, WHOSE TORTURE MEMOS LED TO COMMISSION OF WAR CRIMES
UPDATE:http://nlg.org/news/statements/CCR stat ... ements/CCR
Letter from the Center for Constitutional Rights supporting the Guild's position. (PDF)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 9, 2008
Contact:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, marjorie@tjsl.edu; 619-374-6923
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org; 212-679-5100, x11
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON BOALT HALL TO DISMISS LAW PROFESSOR JOHN YOO, WHOSE TORTURE MEMOS LED TO COMMISSION OF WAR CRIMES
New York. In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war.
The federal maiming statute, for example, makes it a crime for someone "with the intent to torture, maim, or disfigure" to "cut, bite, or slit the nose, ear or lip, or cut out or disable the tongue, or put out or destroy an eye, or cut off or disable a limb or any member of another person." It further prohibits individuals from "throwing or pouring upon another person any scalding water, corrosive acid, or caustic substance" with like intent.
Yoo also narrowed the definition of torture so the victim must experience intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result; Yoo's definition contravenes the definition in the Convention Against Torture, a treaty the US has ratified which is thus part of the US law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Yoo said self-defense or necessity could be used as a defense to war crimes prosecutions for torture, notwithstanding the Torture Convention's absolute prohibition against torture in all circumstances, even in wartime. This memo and another Yoo wrote with Jay Bybee in August 2002 provided the basis for the Administration's torture of prisoners.
"John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act," said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.
Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country's premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, March 28, 2008
Contact:
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org, 212-679-5100, ext. 11
Zachary Wolfe, NLG Amicus Committee, zwolfe@gwu.edu, 202-994-3053
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD DECRIES THIRD CIRCUIT DECISION IN
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL V. MARTIN HORN APPEAL
Culture of Police Corruption and Judicial Bias Infected Trial and Appellate Proceedings
New York. The National Lawyers Guild is gravely disappointed by the decision of the three-judge panel of the Appellate Court in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal v. Martin Horn. In a 118-page written decision, two of the three judges denied the defense’s Batson v. Kentucky claim, namely that the prosecution was motivated by racial discrimination when it struck blacks from the panel of prospective jurors. Dissenting from the opinion, Justice Thomas Ambro questioned why the court chose this case to announce a new procedural requirement and wrote that he would have ordered a hearing and required the prosecution to explain its challenges of black jury panelists. “It is merely to take the next step in deciding whether race was impermissibly considered during jury selection in his case,” he wrote.
The court also ruled that the death penalty could not be reinstated unless a new penalty hearing is held within 180 days.
Executive Director Heidi Boghosian said, “Yesterday’s decision is a somber reminder that the criminal justice system has been unable to eradicate the continuing impacts of racism. Despite evidence that racial bias influenced all stages of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s trial and appeals, an award-winning journalist has been denied the chance to prove the extent that overt racial animus colored his day in court.”
From its inception, a climate of racial animosity within the Philadelphia criminal justice system has plagued the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. After a 1993 police corruption scandal in which 300 convictions were thrown out as improper, the Philadelphia District Attorney revealed that juries had routinely been selected with an eye toward excluding blacks. Numerous brutality suits and an FBI probe resulting in the conviction of thirty police officers for corruption greatly damaged the Police Department’s image. The 1985 police department bombing of the MOVE Organization’s West Philadelphia residence and the burning down of two city blocks, resulted in additional federal investigations into brutality and corruption. Earlier, in 1979, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against former police commissioner and then Mayor Frank Rizzo for police brutality, citing nearly 300 fatal police shootings of civilians in a three-year period.
Amidst this culture of police corruption and brutality toward African-Americans, in 1982, Judge Albert Sabo, who issued Abu-Jamal’s death sentence and presided over his appeal, was overheard in chambers to have said “I’m going to help them fry the nigger.” Sabo was widely known as the “hanging judge” for sentencing 33 people to death (all but two of them persons of color), more than twice as many as any other sitting judge in the United States.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild. Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
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