Padilla v. Yoo

Late on Friday, after some of us had long since packed up our computers, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco ruled that Jose Padilla, the American citizen declared an “enemy combatant” by President George W. Bush and incarcerated at a U.S. Naval brig in South Carolina, may proceed with his lawsuit against University [...]

In another move that suggests the Obama Department of Justice is not making many big policy breaks with its predecessor when it comes to the legal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees, the department filed a brief renewing the government’s motion to dismiss the case of Rasul v. Rumsfeld.
The case is very similar to the lawsuit [...]

Following up on my earlier post about whether the Obama Justice Department really ought to be representing John Yoo — the notorious former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer during the Bush administration — Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a professor at Columbia Law School, pointed out to me today that [...]

The question has come up a lot lately, particularly since oral arguments last week in Jose Padilla’s lawsuit against John Yoo made clear that the federal judge was taking the case very seriously. After all, it was a bit odd to see Barack Obama’s Justice Department defending Yoo — who Padilla’s lawyers claim is responsible [...]