Yoo Lawyers Up for a Shot at the 9th

/in /by

The 9th, John Yoo? You really think the 9th Circuit is gonna be more sympathetic to your cause than the judge who already ruled Padilla can sue you? (h/t fatster)

Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that allowed a prisoner to sue him for devising the legal theories that led to his alleged torture, Yoo’s attorneys said today.

President Obama’s Justice Department, which represented Yoo in unsuccessfully seeking dismissal of the suit, filed a notice saying he would ask the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to intervene in the case. Department attorneys also said they were dropping out of the case and that Yoo was now represented by a private lawyer, not identified in the court document.

Well, I guess you gotta go through the 9th to get to Scalia and Alito…

Enter your vote below for which private lawyer Yoo has retained to try to save his rear end.

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  1. emptywheel says:

    David Rivkin? Victoria Toensing and her husband Joseph DiGenova? I’d say Scooter Libby but, um, I guess he’s not a lawyer anymore, right?

    • Hmmm says:

      (OT — Just got here, missed all the excitement today; but: WAY TO GO, thou foulmouthed blowjob-citing femblogger extraordinaire!!! Furthermore: Fuck those fucking moronical fucks for turning your blowjob-citing into the shiny object du jour.)

    • siri says:

      yeah, he was my first thought.
      Starr.
      the assho of the known Universe!
      unless maybe Addington can clear a space on his calendar.
      oh get real!
      we are on the planet of “conflict of interest does not apply”.

  3. AirportCat says:

    Dick DeGuerin? Richard Haynes? True, they specialize in criminal defense, but if the ShYoo fits …

    • BoxTurtle says:

      He had little choice. He knows he’ll lose in thew 9th, but it will take time and the Supremes are almost certain to agree to hear the case.

      I think Yoo’s got three votes, but I won’t speculate how the unbaised supremes will rule on this one.

      Yoo’s got money backing him. I’m betting on a lawyer named “Scratch” who smells of brimstone.

      Boxturtle (Don’t laugh. Scratch would do it as a favor to Dick)

      • NMvoiceofreason says:

        My prediction is that even when he gets to SCOTRP, they will rule that case is not yet ripe (doesn’t smell bad enough) and will send it back down to district court for trial. Yoo loses 15 yards for delay of game.

        Scratch will be there, in one form or another, maybe just to whisper in the judges ear…. you are right about that!

  9. AlanDownunder says:

    If/when this gets to the Supreme Court, must Thomas recuse himself on the ground that Yoo was his clerk?

  10. emptywheel says:

    A reader reminds me that Yoo was represented by today’s coulda-been SCOTUS nominee Miguel Estrada when he appeared before Congress last summer.

    • emptywheel says:

      Hmm.

      Because they have to fill the sapce Froomkin used to fill?

      Because Fred Hiatt is still in charge?

      Because Palin only has a bit of time to leverage her credential?

      Because she got bored fishing?

      • klynn says:

        Because this is the step Rachel talked about…”her professional, conservative show-job.”

        I did type show-job, didn’t I?

        • Leen says:

          “Palin Bailin”
          “Sarah Nara”
          “blowjob showjob”

          Clinton’s “blowjob” – impeachment
          Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz WMD “intelligence snowjob = hundreds of thousands dead, tens of thousands injured, millions displaced

          Sarah’s “showjob” = endless coverage by the MSM

          Rachel
          http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

    • chrisc says:

      As long as we are into guessing, maybe we should try and guess who really wrote that drivel for her.

    • NMvoiceofreason says:

      Lawyer who represent self has fool for client. Lawyer who represent Yoo has fool for client. – Confusus.

    • pdaly says:

      LOL, again.

      Isn’t any lawyer defending Yoo going to be stuck with merely citing Yoo as his/her source of understanding the law? –especially since Yoo’s OLC memos did away with/ignored major legal precedents?

      • cinnamonape says:

        Maybe he’ll represent himself. He does seem fulsome (snicker) in his capabilities. And after all, he wrote those memoranda/opinions specifically to defend the Executive in a case like this, right?

        • NMvoiceofreason says:

          More interesting is the withdrawal of the Justice Department attorneys. They had to withdraw because of a conflict of interest. That conflict of interest was…?

    • behindthefall says:

      Compare that text to anything you have ever seen or heard her say: she did not write that piece. She may have blathered on for five minutes over the phone, but that is the product of >= 1 editor. (And probably one with less hair now than he or she started with.)

  19. alank says:

    I see at the Beeb, that a CIA agent has reported waterboarding before August 2002, in May or June of that year.

    A former CIA agent has told the BBC that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded by the CIA in May or June 2002.

    The date was provided by former CIA agent John Kiriakou. The practice was sanctioned in written memos by Bush administration lawyers in August 2002.

    The CIA says waterboarding did not take place before August 2002.

    Officials have refused to tell the BBC when it did occur.

    Curious this flow of shiny objects goes on.

  20. bemused says:

    His case will be handled by his cousin, Vinny Yoo, a recent law school graduate, and the trial will ultimately hinge on dramatic testimony about skid marks left in a parking lot by a 1963 Pontiac Tempest.

  22. Hmmm says:

    Seriously, Ken Starrchamber would be a good choice for Yoo. He’d wow the Supremes, and has half a chance of winning over the 9th as well. Why exactly he has that rockstar effect on legal pros I will never ever understand, but he does have it.

  23. fatster says:

    Oh, man! I’m going O/T again. Apologies.

    Obama Faces Hurdles in Closing Guantánamo
    By DAVID JOHNSTON and ELISABETH BUMILLER
    Published: July 13, 2009

    “As of this week, lawyers reviewing each detainee’s case have completed the initial sorting process for only about half the total Guantánamo population of 229 men, though officials said that by October they expected to complete the initial evaluations, determining who could be transferred to other countries, prosecuted or detained without charges.”
    . . .
    ‘“We’ve recognized that this is going to be a very difficult undertaking,” said a senior administration official who asked for anonymity so he would not be identified as speaking about a sorting process that the administration is trying to keep secret. The official said that the administration could not rely “on the system that we inherited, which by all indications didn’t deliver on what we all expected it should, namely successful prosecutions.”’

    [OK, so IANAL and I am just an old thing and all that, but why are we worried about obtaining “successful prosecutions”? Why aren’t we trying to do what is right, obtaining justice? I guess that’s just a “quaint” thought, huh? ]

    Link.

    • Petrocelli says:

      I was gonna vote fer Alvin but I don’t think Yoo is that stoopid … although I secretly hope he is.

  26. pdaly says:

    LOL. When I first read the title to this post, I thought you meant the 9th amendment:

    “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

    What rights of the people? Claiming retained rights be groveling for Yoo.

  29. squib says:

    Ted Olson, gotta be! He has partisan qualifications to spare. Worked in OLC under Reagan. Defended Reagan in the Iran-Contra case, which would seem to be an excellent experience for the heady separation of powers issues that are bound to arise in the Yoo case. Plus, his wife was killed in one of the planes that crashed into the WTC on 9/11 which also happened to be his BIRTHDAY. Ok, so Wikipedia says she was his 3rd wife, but I am sure he is still pissed. And to top it off he is an alumnus of UC Berkeley which is where Yoo has currently entrenched himself.

  30. bobschacht says:

    News sources have been talking about the 9(?) people referred for prosecution after the 2004 IG report was reviewed. According to ABC News, the only CIA interrogator prosecuted was David Passaro, a contractor who was charged in July 2004 with assault in the death of a detainee in Afghanistan named Abdul Wali. Passaro was found guilty in 2006 and sentenced to eight years in prison. But who were the other 8? Contractors? CIA personnel? They apparently received mild disciplinary actions. Might Holder focus on these cases?

    Bob in HI

    • acquarius74 says:

      Bob, one of them is Mark Swanner, CIA agent/interrogator of Manadel Al Jamadi AKA “the Iceman”. Al Jamadi died in Abu Ghraib while Swanner was interrogating him. Al Jamadi’s picture showing his dead body packed in ice with the female bending over him with thumbs-up is among those first seen from Abu Ghraib. Here is a NY Times article about Swanner, who is apparently still employed by the CIA even though the CIA referred his case to DOJ for further investigation.

      I mentioned yesterday in a comment at EW that these dusty cases would probably be the first to see any action in prosecuting the torturers.

      Thanks for the name you gave. Now I know of 2 of the 8 or 9 names the CIA itself referred for investigation and were left to gather dust by the Bush/Cheney DOJ.

  32. TarheelDem says:

    Two subsidiary questions:

    1. Who knows the judges on the 9th?

    2. Who does not have the last name “Bennett”?

      • TarheelDem says:

        Thanks.

        On seeing the list of judges on the 9th Circuit, it occurs to me that Yoo might go for any lawyer, thinking that with Bybee on the bench, he’s got the case wired.

        That is, if he uses the same legal judgment he showed in the memos.

        • cinnamonape says:

          Yeah, noticed Bybee sitting down there as #43 on the list. But what amazed me is how few Bush appointees are in the 8th Circuit. Seems that judges really held off on retirement to prevent Dubya from making appointments.

    • fatster says:

      Does this help?

      “Defense lawyers for Rosen and Weissman — Abbe D. Lowell and John Nassikas — credited the government for dismissing the charges, saying that the investigation has been misguided since the FBI first searched AIPAC’s offices in 2004.”

      http://articles.latimes.com/20…../na-aipac2

  35. lysias says:

    Bybee would of course recuse himself in a case involving Yoo. If he were foolish enough to want to stay on the panel, the chief judge of the circuit would certainly talk sense into him.

  36. Mary says:

    What grounds are Yoo and his lawyers giving for their withdrawal and who is paying for his appellate lawyers?

    BTW – did anyone ask Kagan about recusal if Goldsmith is investigated for his advice that taking out of the country for torture sessions is ok as long as everyone is back by curfew?

  37. earlofhuntingdon says:

    The DoJ may have dropped its representation of Yoo, but is it – and we – still paying for it? In which, the cost just jumped an order of magnitude.

  38. DeadLast says:

    The 9th???

    He must be betting disHonorable Judge Jay S. Bybee will be able to hear the case, given his intimate knowledge of how the Justice Department works and his long-time support for employee protections.