No discipline for torture memo authors

As you all probably know by now, the big news this week is the fact that the Office of Professional Responsibility of the Dept of Justice issued its report concluding that Justice Department lawyers did not commit professional misconduct by writing legal memos that authorized the use of torture by US officials. The conduct of the lawyers in authoring the so-called "torture memos" has been widely criticized by professional responsibility experts as a violation of basic principles of the profession including the duties of competence, honesty and independent professional judgment. For examples of this, you should take a look at the testimony of Prof. David Luban before the House Judiciary Committee on May 6, 2008 (here) and the

and the brief filed by several Prof Responsibility professors in the Padilla v Yoo case (available here.) (My thanks to the Legal Ethics Forum for that link)

For a detailed discussion of the memos and many helpful links go here. For more on the story and some critical commentary go here, and here. For a comment by Prof. Jonathan Turely on the tv show Countdown go here.

The original OPR report concluded that former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee of the Office of Legal Counsel committed professional misconduct and that his deputy, John Yoo, committed intentional professional misconduct. Go here for a copy of the OPR report. But Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis rejected those findings. Go here for the report.