From: B.
Date: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:18 PM
Date: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:18 PM
Michael,
I wonder if you could somehow use this report, which I constructed from the legal reporting; I am somewhat familiar with the CJA from earlier court cases as well. I would prefer not to be bylined, but if that is the only way you could or would use it, I would consider it. I have not seen this addressed in other alternative media, but then again, I could have missed something. It smells of rank jud-icial engineering to me.
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April 2010
In an obscure torture case argued to the Supreme Court last month, a prominent Jewish group has taken the position that a former Somali government official should be immune from suit for acts of torture perpetrated against a Somali now living in California -- due at least in part to concern that former Israeli officials could face the same liability, according to the group's brief.
The group, the American Jewish Committee, filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of a former Somali defense minister and later prime minister, Mohamed Samantar, of Fairfax, Virginia. Samantar's own representation in the case was provided by Shay Dvoretzky, of the Jones Day law firm of Washington, DC. The American Jewish Committee was one of two Jewish organizations to file friend of the court briefs.
The other, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, also withheld support for the alleged victims of Samantar, stating that only the perpetrators of the "worst atrocities" such as "the Holocaust," should be held to account for their actions in U.S. courts, and purporting to take no position on whether that class included Samantar. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the case, argued March 2.
According to a February 2010 report in the legal publication Los Angeles Daily Journal, there have been at least two recent federal court cases where trial courts held that former Israeli officials were immune from similar lawsuits arising from claims of abuse of Palestinians, filed in the District of Columbia and the Southern District of New York (headquartered in Manhattan).
The trial court in the Samantar case held likewise that Samantar was immune from suit, but that decision was then reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, often regarded as one of the most "conservative" appellate courts in the nation. The Fourth Circuit decision in turn led to the petition of attorney Dvoretsky -- a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia -- to the Supreme Court and the filings of the Jewish organizations. The Fourth Circuit said that when Congress specified "foreign states" as immune from such suits in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, it was not clear that Congress intended to extend immunity to individuals.
The organization representing the plaintiff, the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, has a law practice focused exclusively on the representation of torture victims. CJA director Pamela Merchant admitted to the Los Angeles Daily Journal that it was a surprise to the CJA that the Supreme Court accepted the appeal, and that she is concerned that the high court did so in order to reverse the Fourth Circuit ruling favoring her client. The precedent established by a reversal would be a major setback for human rights groups, said David Kaye of UCLA Law School to the Daily Journal.
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Peace.
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
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