Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo will appeal a federal judge's ruling that allowed a prisoner to sue him for devising the legal theories that led to his alleged torture, Yoo's attorneys said Monday.President Obama's Justice Department, which represented Yoo in unsuccessfully seeking dismissal of the suit, filed a notice saying he would ask the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to intervene in the case. Department attorneys also said they were dropping the case and that Yoo was now represented by a private lawyer, not identified in the court document.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, was a Justice Department attorney from 2001 to 2003 and wrote a series of memos on interrogation, detention and presidential powers. One of his memos, which he wrote in 2002, said treatment of captives amounted to torture only if it caused the same level of pain as "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
The suit was filed by Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen now serving a 17-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiring to provide money and supplies to Islamic extremist groups.
His suit covers his imprisonment in a Navy brig, where he was held without charges for thee years and eight months after he was arrested in Chicago in 2002. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft accused him of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb," allegations that were later dropped.
Padilla said in his suit that he had been subjected to extremes of light and temperature, confined in painful positions and threatened with death. He alleged that Yoo, who has acknowledged being part of a Bush administration planning group, reviewed and approved his treatment and provided legal cover.
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