recap of oral argument before the 11th Circuit in Jose Padilla v. United States

* Padilla v. United States (11^th Cir.) (oral argument overview)

I don’t normally circulate news items, but this report has a useful overview of the issues and exchanges in connection with Jose Padilla’s recent oral argument in the 11^th Circuit, including the very timely issue of whether attempts to prosecute someone after years in military detention and interrogation should result in a dismissal of charges on outrageous government conduct grounds.

forthcoming scholarship; more on the Senate Armed Services interrogation report

1. Forthcoming Scholarship

“Our Nation Unhinged:  The Human Consequences of the War on Terror”

University of California Press

Peter Jan Honigsberg

Professor of Law

University of San Francisco

honigsbergp@usfca.edu

Abstract: Jose Padilla short-shackled and wearing blackened goggles and earmuffs to block out all light and sound on his way to the dentist. Fifteen-year-old Omar Khadr crying out to an American soldier, “Kill me!” Hunger strikers at Guantánamo being restrained and force-fed through tubes up their nostrils. John Walker Lindh lying naked and blindfolded in a metal container, bound by his hands and feet, in the freezing Afghan winter night. This is the story of the Bush administration’s response to the attacks of September 11, 2001—and of how we have been led down a path of executive abuses, human tragedies, abandonment of the Constitution, and the erosion of due process and liberty. In this vitally important book, Peter Jan Honigsberg chronicles the black hole of the American judicial system from 2001 to the present, providing an incisive analysis of exactly what we have lost over the past seven years and where we are now headed.

symposium: terrorism & the legal impact on business; forthcoming scholarship

1. Center for Terrorism Law (St. Mary’s), Symposium: Terrorism, Crime & Business: Understanding the Fundamental Legal and Security Issues for American Business (Houston, TX, March 5-6, 2009)

Details posted here: http://www.stmarytx.edu/ctl/content/events/Business_Symposium.html

2. Forthcoming Scholarship

“The Rise and Spread of the Special Advocate”

Public Law, pp. 717-741, 2008

JOHN IP, University of Auckland – Faculty of Law
Email: j.ip@auckland.ac.nz

This article critically examines the special advocate procedure, a means devised to reconcile the use of secret evidence with principles of due process or natural justice. The special advocate is a lawyer who is appointed to represent the interests of a person during proceedings in which the state relies on sensitive material that cannot be disclosed to that person.