A prosecutor has been appointed to investigate possible abuses by the CIA, and they are also looking into that little matter of destroying interrogation tapes. It looks like Professor Yoo will escape prosecution. But he continues to be harassed at his teaching position.
While Rightscounsel does not support Professor Yoo’s position on torture, or any of the positions for which he has been so justly criticized, the move to try and strip him of tenure is deeply troubling. Remember that tenure is designed to protect those who espouse deeply unpopular opinions. While Dean Edley seems to support the idea of tenure, he seems to fall short of completely defending Professor Yoo’s tenure.
It might be fun to hound someone you do not agree with. But just imagine if a future professor Obama was similarly were to be hounded by all those town hall crazies or birthers. Rightscounsel is reminded of a point that Professor once made in a public appearance in the early days of the Bush administration. The topic was compassionate use of medical marijuana. He pointed out that the doctrine of federalism cuts both ways — people who espouse liberal views in California often decry federalism, but they may seek shelter under that doctrine if a character like Alberto Gonzales is deciding who the federal government may want to prosecute. The same is true of tenure. While it may protect people and opinions we do not like, it also protects the voice of people who dare to speak out in more troubling times.
That brings me to another topic — word on the street is that Professor Yoo is an excellent teacher and one of the few professors at Berkeley who has gone the extra mile to help out students who need assistance securing clerkships or post-graduation employment. It would be a shame if Berkeley lost him.
The Los Angeles times suggests that the Supreme Court may embrace the actual innocence doctrine – meaning that the actual guilt or innocence of an individual defendant could be explored in a collateral attack. This appears to be a common sense approach. However, the downside is that confictions will no longer have the same finality that we are used to. If the actual innocence doctrine is embraced, it will be a boon to all those wrongfully convicted and an enormous boon to habeas attorneys across the country.
Although our prisons are overcrowded, and although a dollar spent on education in at-risk communities goes much further than a dollar spent on incarceration, the Democrats are still promoting the bloated ranks (and bloated salaries) of California’s prison gaurds. I guess they would rather cut the education budget than cut the prison budget. How did the democratic party arrive at a policy that should be anathema to the party?
The new city attorney, Carmen Trutanich, is apparently looking at the expansion of gang injunctions as a tool to control the city’s graffiti problem. The LA times raises the alarm of “constitutional issues.” Of course, they do not discuss what those issues might be and how this is any different from simple gang injunctions.
North Korea makes another overture by releasing an engineer detained in March. If the North collapses and is absorbed by the South, will the International Criminal Court have jurisdiction over crimes created by former North Korean officials? South Korea is a signatory (the U.S. is not). Here is one group that seems to think it possible to prosecute their neighbor’s dear leader.
Story here in the New York times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/world/13foggo.html?pagewanted=all
Here is a reminder of the opinion.
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2004/2004_03_636/
And an article commenting on possible outcomes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601557.html
Let’s hope for the best
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