Is It Legal Malpractice to Fail to Get Holder to Promise Not To Torture Your Client?

[kpete]

"which of you ordered his whiskey in a clean glass?"

Is It Legal Malpractice to Fail to Get Holder to Promise Not To Torture Your Client?

The idea that the Attorney General of the United States of America would send such a letter to the representative of a foreign government, particularly Russia under the leadership of a former KGB official, was so preposterous that I thought the first news report I read about Attorney General Holder's letter concerning Edward Snowden was satire. The joke, however, was on me. The Obama and Bush administrations have so disgraced the reputation of the United States' criminal justice system that we are forced to promise KGB alums that we will not torture our own citizens if Russia extradites them for prosecution.

The standard joke that came to mind when I read Holder's letter was the bartender who brings out glasses to three customers and asks "which of you ordered his whiskey in a clean glass?" We take it for granted that no restaurant or bar will knowingly serve us our drinks in a dirty glass. I always took it for granted that no U.S. attorney general would knowingly allow a criminal suspect in U.S. custody to be the victim of torture, raped, branded, or a host of other forms of brutality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/eric-holder-letter-to-russia_b_3661348.html