Yoo Gets Sued

Via Politico:

A judge's decision on Friday to allow a suit by a former detainee against Bush-era Justice Department counsel John Yoo to ...

proceed marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially liable for the treatment of detainees held as enemy combatants -- and it places the Obama Justice Department in the uncomfortable position of defending one of the Bush appointees who penned some of the so-called terror memos that the new president has railed against.

The 42-page decision by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White allows the suit by Jose Padilla -- who was accused of planning a "dirty bomb" attack on U.S. soil and held in solitary confinement as a material witness for more than three years in the Navy brig in Charleston S.C. -- to proceed.

The suit accuses Yoo of personally approving Padilla's detention, and provided legal cover for it.

Yoo, a law professor at Berkley and visiting lecturer at Chapman University in Orange County, has not commented on the case, but White said Friday that Padilla had a right to sue "the alleged architect of the government policy," rejecting government arguments that their actions were beyond the scope of judicial review.

The initial charges against Padilla, a U.S. citizen, were eventually dropped, and in 2007 he was convicted to 17 years imprisonment by a civilian court on criminal conspiracy charges.

A separate suit by Padilla against a variety of current and former officials, including Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft, is awaiting a ruling in a South Carolina federal court.