Yoo Want It, Yoo Got It

I urge everybody to check out the new blog Mere Dicta for its great coverage of the Boalt student campaign against war-crime enabler, Professor John Yoo. Here's a really great post I wanted to quote in full:

A number of people have suggested that Prof. Yoo was only "doing his job" in writing the infamous memo, answering a question posed by his client as he saw fit.

I wonder how far this is supposed to go. Assume for a minute that Prof. Yoo's advice was legally accurate (a highly questionable assumption, but just for the sake of argument). He must have or should have known that in the real world, his client would end up imprisoning completely innocent civilians, and that they would be using his legal advice as a cover for doing so. (And if anyone thinks the U.S. only imprisons genuine al Qaeda and Taliban combatants at Guantanamo and Bagram, I have some Iraqi marshland to sell you.)

Suppose a moonlighting law professor takes on a mafia family as a client. He provides them with legal advice that, while accurate, he knows will be used to cause great harm to innocent persons. Is that protected by academic freedom? If students are so repulsed by his immoral actions, is it inappropriate to ask him to resign?

Are lawyers just hired guns with no duty to consider the consequences of the legal advice they provide? I realize many lawyers act like this is the case, but is it really an excuse?
- posted by Jon @ 6:41 PM |