Judges Claim Rummy in Clear Because Ordered People Tortured Only Overseas

[kpete]

Judges Claim Rummy in Clear Because Ordered People Tortured Only Overseas
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2011-01-13 22:17

* Criminal Prosecution and Accountability

By PETE YOST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A panel of federal appeals court judges expressed doubts Thursday that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and three former military officers can be sued for allegedly allowing torture in U.S. military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In courtroom arguments, two of the three judges were skeptical that Rumsfeld and three U.S. military officials could face damage claims for exercising command responsibility over subordinates accused of torturing prisoners. Nine prisoners have filed suit.

"You are turning two centuries of Supreme Court jurisprudence on its ear," David Sentelle, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, told an attorney for the detainees.

Sentelle and Judge Harry Edwards suggested that the defendants should be immune from the suit because it wasn't clear that the U.S. Constitution applied overseas when the detainees say they were tortured.

MORE: http://warisacrime.org/content/judges-claim-rummy-clear-because-ordered-people-tortured-only-overseas

[ananda]

1. Sheesh.

nt

[shraby]

2. what about the fact that it's a war crime?

[Solly Mack]

3. Sick country

K&R

[Bandit]

4. David Sentelle, the chief judge of the U.S. Court

seems to get himself involved in every slimy thing Republicans get involved in..Wasn't it him that said Cheney didn't need to turn over anything to anybody? Wasn't it him that was the judge against Clinton? It just seems to me he represents the very worst of Republican Judges. He and Scalia are two peas in a pod...

[rfranklin]

6. He is a slimeball...

and the Republicans "go to guy" as demonstrated by the cases you mention.

[DCKit]

5. "International treaties only apply to "teh little peoples.""

Talk about "activist judges".

[HereSince1628]

7. We're fighting them over there, so that ...

we can TORTURE them!!!!

Wow, after WWII we never observed that standard for the Japanese war criminals.

[gratuitous]

8. By Sentelle's reasoning, the Nazis couldn't be held responsible for Auschwitz

That was in Poland, so whatever happened there would have been okey dokey with David Sentelle, the repressive right's go-to judge ever since the days of the Arkansas Project, designed to overturn the 1992 election.

This is an odious man who needs to be off the federal bench.

[Angry Dragon]

9. k&r

[hvn_nbr_2]

10. If U.S. law doesn't apply outside the U.S., then why...

are they going after Assange?

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Assange hasn't been charged in an American court

[bullwinkle428]

12. Step #142 in the continuing decline of the empire.