{"id":88821,"date":"2009-12-18T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:criminaljustice.change.org:\/\/55f07784d525ea07475a80de2f53347a"},"modified":"2009-12-18T11:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T16:21:00","slug":"imho-f-yoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/88821","title":{"rendered":"IMHO F Yoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"John Yoo<\/a>, law professor and notorious former Deputy Attorney General in Office of Legal Counsel (\u201cOLC\u201d), is a sleazebag attorney. As the Bush Administration\u2019s de facto<\/em> head of war-on-terrorism legal issues, Yoo penned a series of memoranda that legally justified torture at places like Guantanamo Bay. Because of his unconscionable advice, some liberal commentators<\/a> have proclaimed that Yoo himself should be criminally prosecuted and locked up in prison. I disagree. Though, in my humble opinion, Yoo can go fumigate himself, I still do not advocate prison time as punishment for his sins.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. In politics, I lean left and believe wholeheartedly in human rights. I therefore detest Yoo\u2019s OLC opinions. I do not defend, for example, his view that inflicting pain during interrogation is perfectly legal up until the point where the physical pain is \u201cequivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.\u201d<\/a> Though dressed up as legal analysis, this garbage really mocks the rule of law. So why am I against criminal prosecution and incarceration?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first reason is ideological consistency. Last week, I argued here<\/a> that defense attorney Lynne Stewart should not be imprisoned for her zealous advocacy on behalf of her unpopular client, Sheikh Rahman. Though distinctions can be made, I still regard Yoo\u2019s misbehavior as essentially arising from zealotry while representing a despicable client \u2013 the Bush administration. So if you support Stewart\u2019s prosecution, I believe fairness demands that you also should support Yoo\u2019s prosecution. On the other hand, I recognize that what\u2019s good for the goose is good for the gander. Since I advocate leniency for Stewart, calling for Yoo\u2019s head on a platter would strike me as hypocritical.<\/p>\n

Beyond consistency, my opposition to prison time for Yoo stems from a deeper commitment to fight mass incarceration. I believe that our current prison and jail population of 2.3 million<\/a> stands as a great moral outrage that shames our \u201cLand of the Free.\u201d To effectively fight this beast, I urge liberal-minded folks to resist siren calls to lock up \u201cbad people\u201d whenever possible. This is not easy to do; some people \u2013 say, those who justify torture or advocate hate<\/a> \u2013 clearly deserve punishment. But to change society\u2019s general mindset about prison, we must lead by example in rejecting its usefulness in all but the most grave criminal circumstances.<\/p>\n

For Yoo then, I would advocate seeking more poetic justice. Perhaps we should dock his pay and divert it to Human Rights Watch\u2019s<\/a> work against torture. Perhaps Change.org readers have even more creative ideas. No matter what, we should think outside of the (prison) box.<\/p>\n

Photo: aroddick<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Yoo, law professor and notorious former Deputy Attorney General in Office of Legal Counsel (\u201cOLC\u201d), is a sleazebag attorney. As the Bush Administration\u2019s de facto head of war-on-terrorism legal issues, Yoo penned a series of memoranda that legally justified torture at places like Guantanamo Bay. Because of his unconscionable advice, some liberal commentators have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}