Legal News

Judge Bybee Lands Pro-Bono Help From Latham?s Mahoney

By Ashby Jones

Ninth Circuit judge Jay Bybee got some good news yesterday, when the Attorney General in Spain rejected prosecutors’ decision to bring criminal charges against him and five other former Bush officials over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

But his celebration was likely dampened a bit with word that the Justice Department had released detailed memos penned by former Bush administration lawyers describing the harsh techniques used by CIA operatives on detainees from 2002 to 2005. Bybee, then an assistant attorney general, authored one of the memos. Click here for coverage from the NYT, here for the documents, courtesy of the NYT, and here for the WaPo’s take.

Might there be ramifications for Jay Bybee, whose memo sanctions waterboarding because it does not inflict “prolonged mental harm?” An article today in the Recorder examines the issue.

“As we understand it,” Bybee wrote, “when the waterboard is used, the subject’s body responds as if the subject were drowning — even though the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm. Thus, although the subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not inflict physical pain.”

The Obama Administration assured CIA employees Thursday that they would not be prosecuted, but the White House has offered no cover to Bybee or other government lawyers.

So for now, Bybee is on his own. The good news, however, he’s got a nationally recognized lawyer on his side, Latham & Watkins’s Maureen Mahoney, who’s handling the case pro bono. In an e-mail Thursday, Mahoney said Bybee has recused himself from Latham cases, but offered no further comment on his case.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).