The Chapman University School of Law dean and a professor at the Orange County, Calif., law school gave LA Times readers a preview of what the upcoming debate between former Bush administration legal adviser John Yoo and professors at the school could look like.
Published in the LA Times Opinion section Thursday, Dean John C. Eastman and professor Lawrence Rosenthal wrote separate pieces arguing whether Chapman visiting professor John Yoo, who teaches at U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, is fit to mold and Socratize young legal minds.
Mr. Rosenthal, whose piece ran above Eastman’s, stated that Mr. Yoo should not be teaching because the memos he produced for the Bush administration, including one that said the president could allow torture, were flawed in their legal reasoning.
Mr. Rosenthal writes:
“While I yield to no one in my respect for academic freedom, the memos reflect a kind of tunnel vision that I would not tolerate in a student’s work and certainly not in the work of an attorney for our government.”
Dean Eastman disagrees, stating that Mr. Yoo’s presence on the campus inspires healthy debate, and Eastman even goes so far as to disagree with those who have criticized Mr. Yoo.
Mr. Eastman writes:
“As the dean of the law school, I welcome his presence and the debate it has provoked. The opportunity to confront positions with which one disagrees is the hallmark of a first-rate education. As a constitutional law scholar, I should also note my disagreement with Yoo’s detractors.”
Read why Mr. Eastman disagrees with the critics of Mr. Yoo’s memos here.
There’s no mention of the recent developments in Spain, where prosecutors took the first steps toward a possible criminal investigation for six Bush officials.
Mr. Rosenthal is one of two professors at Chapman scheduled to debate Mr. Yoo 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 21 in the university’s Memorial Hall in a dialogue titled “Presidential Power and Success in Times of Crisis”.
If you’re planning on going, it sounds like it would be a good idea to show up early. The university, in anticipation of a large turnout, has moved the event to a larger location than originally planned and will not be including lunch.
For more information on the event, Chapman’s Web site says to contact Barbara Babcock at bbabcock@chapman.edu.
Photo: John Yoo Wikipedia page / Wikimedia Commons
Author and British barrister (lawyer) Philippe Sands told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer: “If I were they, I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole.”
And who is part of the “they” in question?
Sands, who released a book titled “Torture Team” last year, singles out six former Bush administration officials, including John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer and currently a visiting instructor at Chapman University’s School of Law.
When Sands book – which accuses Bush officials of complicity in acts of torture – came out, his predictions seemed far fetched, Mayer said. But Mayer writes that last week “Sand’s accusations suddenly did not seem so outlandish.” That’s because a court in Spain took the first steps toward the start of a criminal investigation of the Bush Six, the group of officials Sands cited in his book.
Here’s what happened in Spain. According to the New York Times, an official close to the case said the case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review. According to the article, the official stated it was “highly probable” the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants for the six, though experts have said the warrants would be more symbolic than practical.
Mr. Yoo declined comment on the Times’ story, telling them he had not seen or heard of the petition. But, if you’re in the area, maybe you’ll luck out and he’ll speak on the matter when he debates Chapman Law professors 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 21 in the university’s Memorial Hall in a dialogue titled “Presidential Power and Success in Times of Crisis”.
I’m no psychic, but something tells me this is going to be a debate to watch. The university, in anticipation of a large turnout, has moved the event to a larger location than originally planned and will not be including lunch.
For more information on the event, Chapman’s Web site says to contact Barbara Babcock at bbabcock@chapman.edu.
And here’s a Q&A with John Yoo from the local newspaper, The Orange County Register.
Photo: Joe Gratz / Flickr
Maybe, maybe not. But a technology blog reported that Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick dangled the threat of prosecution in front of boys who had been swapping photos of their classmates via text messaging, or ‘sexting’, the practice of trading risque text messages that may even include nekkid photos. Dood. Kids in my day traded Yu-Gi-Oh cards or pogs.
Julian Sanchez of the Ars Technica blog writes:
“In a letter sent to parents in February, Skumanick declared that both the boys caught swapping the photos and the girls who’d been photographed would have to submit to a reeducation program or risk being charged with a felony.”
Rather than take that risk, parents agreed to the program, but some other parents, after seeing the photos, didn’t think the images of their daughters clad in white bras were really all that pornographic. The ACLU agreed and, you guessed it, lawsuit!
“In a lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of the mothers of the three girls, the civil liberties group argues that photos merely showing minors in their underwear or topless so clearly fall outside the statutory definition of “pornography” that Skumanick could not possibly have any “reasonable expectation of obtaining a conviction.” Rather, the mothers charge that Skumanick is using a frivolous threat of prosecution to bully parents into accepting his childrearing “assistance.” The plaintiffs are asking a federal district court to issue declaratory ruling that the photos are protected speech, not obscenity, and to enjoin Skumanick’s threats as a violation of their parental rights.”
Read the more about the fun legal stuff in the article here!
UPDATE (3/31): A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the prosecutor from charging the students as child pornographers. Read the article by Ars Technica’s Julian Sanchez here.
One of the local rags, The Orange County Register, recently published an article about a local incident of sexting. In this case, a middle-schooler sexted nekkid photos of herself to at least one friend, and somehow that photo made its way to, like, 10 people. Never in a million years could I have predicted that would happen.
According to the Register’s Jaimee Lynn Fletcher, the group of students who circulated the photos were punished with in-house suspensions, where they attended school but could not go to classes.
Here’s a rule of thumb, people. Never ever send, post, Twitter, etc. a photo of yourself that you would not want shown on national television, to a future spouse, or to a future boss. Somebody somewhere is going to find it and your goodies will be out there one way or the other for all the world to see.
From cobalt123's Flickr photostream
The Fire John Yoo! Web site is a project of a group of rebels who are against the hiring of John Yoo as a Fletcher Jones Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Chapman University School of Law. Yoo served in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under former President George W. Bush, and those calling for his dismissal believe his memos played an integral part in the Bush administration’s stance on torture. A Newsweek article published this week discusses the Obama administration’s plans to declassify and release publicly Yoo’s memos.
Fire John Yoo! (which, interestingly, is an anagram for ‘heroin of joy!’) is affiliated with the No To Torture – John Yoo Must Go! coalition at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, where he also faced opposition and where he could be facing disciplinary action. The site also has links to the anti-war, anti-torture, etc. group The World Can’t Wait.
Chapman University is set to host a discussion with Yoo at 11:30 a.m. Weds., April 15 titled “Presidential Power and Success in Times of Crisis”. The discussion will take place in Kennedy Hall, Room 237. For more information, Chapman’s Web site says to contact Barbara Babcock at 714-628-2502 or bbabcock@chapman.edu.
Here’s what the local media had to say about Yoo’s appointment
LA Times: Bush policymaker escapes Berkeley’s wrath.
OC Register: Ex-Bush lawyer talks about torture memos.
There are very few YouTube videos that I rewatch. Whenever I need to be inspired, there’s the spine-tingling performance of Nessun Dorma by Paul Potts of Britain’s Got Talent fame. And, when I need some cheering up, there’s always “Laughing Baby”, where (surprise!) a baby laughs hysterically as his father tears up pieces of paper. Thanks to YouTube director Kutiman (also known as Ophir Kutiel, a musican based out of Tel Aviv) I’ve got several more videos to add to my list.
Kutiel, whom I discovered through blog BoingBoing, artfully remixes a hodge podge of videos from vocalists, instrumentalists, and other artists into what can only be called works of audio art. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but Kutiman’s blend of seemingly unrelated bits and pieces into a single cohesive song seems representative of the power of YouTube (and technology in general) to connect people who have never met, to bridge the gap between languages and cultures to make something new and beautiful. You decide. The video up top is titled “Just a Lady”, one of my favorites from Kutiman’s collection.
The videos aren’t just beautiful, however. Washington Post “Faster Forward” blogger Rob Pegararo states that they bring up some interesting copyright issues. Read his blog here. On a kinda sorta related note, BoingBoing also recently wrote about some economists’ call to abolish copyrights and patents.
Read more about Kutiel and his interview with NPR’s Michelle Block here.
There are a surprising number of people in the legal community on Twitter. From practicing attorneys to current law students, you can find Twits in almost every region of the United States and even some abroad.
A great resource to find legal Twits in your region or in a specific area of practice is Legal Birds. The site lists the top legal birds and breaks down Twits by categories and areas of practice. There’s also a handy dandy map that plots all the legal birds in the area!
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