Will Jose Padilla's Lawsuit Against Torture Memo Author John Yoo Move Forward?

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 8:32 AM on March 9, 2009.

At a hearing in a San Francisco federal court on Friday, lawyers for the Obama administration attempted to squash a lawsuit against former Bush lawyer and "torture memo" author John C. Yoo brought forth by Jose Padilla, the Chicago man famously designated an "illegal enemy combatant" by President Bush in 2002 for allegedly plotting a "dirty bomb" attack on U.S. soil.
Padilla spent three-and-a-half years imprisoned in a black hole at the behest of the Bush administration without being charged or tried. In October of 2006, lawyers for Padilla filed a motion to dismiss his case based on evidence that he had endured multiple forms of torture at the hands of his captors. Glenn Greenwald excerpted portions of their brief at the time, which described in vivid detail the conditions of Padilla's detention, in which included severe isolation, sensory deprivation, and forcible drugging:

For nearly two years -- from June 9, 2002 until March 2, 2004, when the Department of Defense permitted Mr. Padilla to have contact with his lawyers -- Mr. Padilla was in complete isolation. Even after he was permitted contact with counsel, his conditions of confinement remained essentially the same.

He was kept in a unit comprising sixteen individual cells, eight on the upper level and eight on the lower level, where Mr. Padilla's cell was located. No other cells in the unit were occupied. His cell was electronically monitored twenty-four hours a day, eliminating the need for a guard to patrol his unit. His only contact with another person was when a guard would deliver and retrieve trays of food and when the government desired to interrogate him.

In addition to his extreme isolation, Mr. Padilla was also viciously deprived of sleep ... For a substantial period of his captivity, Mr. Padilla's cell contained only a steel bunk with no mattress. ...

... Other times, his captors would bang the walls and cell bars creating loud startling noises. These disruptions would occur throughout the night and cease only in the morning, when Mr. Padilla's interrogations would begin. Efforts to manipulate Mr. Padilla and break his will also took the form of the denial of the few benefits he possessed in his cell. ...

Mr. Padilla's dehumanization at the hands of his captors also took more sinister forms. Mr. Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell. Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr. Padilla was denied even the smallest, and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors.

A substantial quantum of torture endured by Mr. Padilla came at the hands of his interrogators. In an effort to disorient Mr. Padilla, his captors would deceive him about his location and who his interrogators actually were. Mr. Padilla was threatened with being forcibly removed from the United States to another country, including U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was threatened his fate would be even worse than in the Naval Brig.

He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake, and otherwise assault Mr. Padilla.

Additionally, Mr. Padilla was given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.

Bush officials always denied that Padilla was tortured, arguing in legal documents that he had been treated in a consistently "humane" manner. (After his case was moved to a civilian court -- facing new charges different from the the original "dirty bomb" justification -- Padilla was found guilty of supporting overseas jihad and, last January, sentenced to 17 years in prison at a naval brig in South Carolina.)
Now, Padilla is attempting to sue John C. Yoo, the lawyer whose torture memos helped construct the legal justification for torture for the Bush administration. As Daphne Eviatar points out in the Washington Independent, "interestingly, Padilla is not seeking large monetary damages for his treatment: he's asking for only $1. What he really wants, his lawyers say, is a declaration from the government that his incarceration and harsh treatment were wrong."
Inheriting the case from the Bush DOJ, the Obama administration is now defending Yoo. "We're not saying we condone torture," DOJ attorney Mary Mason said last week, while suggesting (as reported by the New York Times) that Padilla's attorneys were "pursuing a case that was more about politics than law, and were trying to create a new legal theory to tie a lawyer to the results of his memorandums. 'He had no supervisory role over Padilla or his detention,' Ms. Mason said, referring to Mr. Yoo."
Despite the efforts by the Obama administration to throw out the lawsuit, New York Times reporter John Schwartz wrote that "the judge did not seem inclined to dismiss the lawsuit."
"In fact, Judge White, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, even told the government's lawyers that Mr. Yoo's 2001 memorandum stating that the constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures can be overridden was "a pretty scary position."

The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have more.

Tagged as: torture, barack obama, department of justice, glenn greenwald, jose padilla, john yoo, enemy combatant, sensory deprivation, torture memos, mary mason

Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage.