Jose Padilla case: Ninth Circuit Grants John Yoo Immunity The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a disappointing ruling that may complicate any future effort to hold Bush administration officials responsible for their immoral and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners after Sept. A three-judge panel decided that Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was declared an enemy combatant, detained and subjected to "harsh interrogation," is not entitled to argue in court for $1 in symbolic damages from John Yoo, the Bush administration lawyer who cooked up legal justifications for prisoner abuse. In a 35-page opinion, the judges state that "Although it has been clearly established for decades that torture of an American citizen violates the Constitution, and we assume without deciding that Padilla's alleged treatment rose to the level of torture, that such treatment was torture was not clearly established in 2001-03." Mr. Yoo is therefore entitled to immunity. In English: If Mr. Padilla's telling the truth, he was tortured, and that's obviously unconstitutional. That's been "clearly established" by Supreme Court ruling. But when Mr. Yoo worked for the Bush administration, the definition of torture wasn't obvious - hadn't been "clearly established" by the Court. So Mr. Yoo's off the hook. That's just nonsense. Here's the passage from the decision describing Mr. Padilla's treatment: Padilla alleged that he was subjected to prolonged isolation; deprivation of light; exposure to prolonged periods of light and darkness, including being "periodically subjected to absolute light or darkness for periods in excess of twenty- four hours"; extreme variations in temperature; sleep adjustment; threats of severe physical abuse; death threats; administration of psychotropic drugs; shackling and manacling for hours at a time; use of "stress" positions; noxious fumes that caused pain to eyes and nose; loud noises; withholding of any mattress, pillow, sheet or blanket; forced grooming; suspensions of showers; removal of religious items; constant surveillance; incommunicado detention, including denial of all contact with family and legal counsel for a 21-month period; interference with religious observance; and denial of medical care for "serious and potentially life-threatening ailments, including chest pain and difficulty breathing, as well as for treatment of the chronic, extreme pain caused by being forced to endure stress positions." At the time of Mr. Padilla's detention, the Supreme Court hadn't addressed whether prolonged shackling and manacling, death threats, and forced acid trips amount to torture. But was that really necessary? In a strict sense, it's true that there was some debate after the Sept. 11th attacks about whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" were lawful - but it wasn't a legitimate debate. It was concocted by the Bush administration to justify and give cover to existing policies. Remember, this is the same crowd that endorsed waterboarding - which the United States government had considered torture since the early 20th century. Here's my recap: The government willfully ignored commonsense, and manufactured a debate about something obviously illegal. But the Ninth Circuit decided that what was obviously illegal wasn't technically illegal because the Supreme Court hadn't said so.