Bad Government.

The following link is an open response by over 130 law school deans to the recent statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles "Cully" Stimson. Stimson recently urged businesses, who are clients of law firms who allow their lawyers to do pro bono work for terrorist suspects, to withhold business from these firms. The goal, of course, is that the law firms faced with economic pressure will prevent their employees from offering legal assistance to these suspects, and hence, give the government a free pass to do as they please. He wants the law firms to have to choose between America and these terror suspects. This, on it's surface, is a stupid supposition because by representing these clients, these firms and their lawyers, are choosing America. Not the neo-con version of America where we eat apple pie all day and shoot anyone worshiping Islam at will, but the America grounded in law, in the belief in due process, and in the bill of rights.

The statement is just an outright scary proposition considering where it came from; the government is urging private business to help them keep suspects away from due process and legal assistance. Why does this administration hate the constitution and the American legal tradition. The government should come out with a statement admonishing the Deputy Assistants statement now!


A statement from a collection of American Law School Deans. (happily signed by the dean of my own law school, Seattle U, along with local school including Idaho, Washington, Gonzaga, etc...)