Judge Denies Motion Citing Torture Policy Involvement as Reason for Recusal
A federal appeals judge has denied a motion that seeks his recusal in an excessive-force case on the ground that he cannot be fair because of his involvement in developing torture policy for the Bush administration.
The motion contends that Judge Jay Bybee of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has a pro-torture attitude that makes him unfit to consider “domestic forms of torture,” including unnecessary use of police force, the Daily Journal reports. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for today in a special session at University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school.
The plaintiffs in the case had sued the city of San Francisco for civil rights violations stemming from a beating by off-duty police officers outside a bar after a dispute over a bag of steak fajitas. A federal judge has ruled the city had no duty to protect citizens from off-duty officers.
Bybee signed the so-called torture memo when he headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The memo said the ban on government use of torture applied only if the methods used caused pain of an intensity consistent with “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.”
