The Torture Lawyers

[groovedaddy]

Is this really the state of ethics in the American legal profession? Government lawyers who abused their offices to give the president license to get away with torture did nothing that merits a review by the bar?

A five-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s ethics watchdogs recommended a disciplinary review for the two lawyers who produced the infamous torture memos for former President George W. Bush, but they were overruled by a more senior Justice Department official.

The original investigation found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had committed “professional misconduct” in a series of memos starting in August 2002. First, they defined torture so narrowly as to make it almost impossible to accuse a jailer of torturing a prisoner, and they finally concluded that President Bush was free to ignore any law on the conduct of war.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility said appropriate bar associations should be asked to look at the actions of Mr. Yoo, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mr. Bybee, who was rewarded for his political loyalty with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. It was a credible accounting, especially since some former officials, like Attorney General John Ashcroft, refused to cooperate and e-mails from Mr. Yoo were mysteriously missing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/opinion/25thur1.html?th&emc=th

[5503landis]

1. Get out of jail free card

Unfortunately it doesn't matter what profession you are because politics trumps all. What I mean is that whether your are a cook in the White House kitchen or a government lawyer, the cloak of politics strips away the ethics that the rest of the population lives by.

It frustrates me as both a U.S. citizen and as an attorney that the when you cover for a high-ranking political figure, you are giving a "get out of jail" card, which can also be used to get out of boiling water.

[varkam]

2. I'll play devil's advocate here.

Wouldn't punishing lawyers for legal analysis on colorable issues that, at the end of the day, turns out to be wrong set a sort of debilitating precedent? It could be argued that it would be a lot more difficult for the executive to function if the DOJ was hamstrung by this notion that, if in four years no one likes your analysis then you could be out of a bar license / in prison.