Salt Blog

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions We now have the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Executive Summary of its Torture Report and for those who actually care about America, it is a nearly 600 page litany of…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions So later this morning Senator Dianne Feinstein will release the Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Torture Report.  With the firestorm of news coverages these past few days, you…

Benjamin G Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions Now that the former CIA leaders – thanks to Brennan – have had six months head start in preparing their vigorous public relations defense of the torture they did, please be prepared…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions Talk about a double standard! Some punks experience depressive overload and riot burning property and stealing stuff from stores in a small town in America – this time Ferguson. Calls for…

By Marjorie Cohn You know the fix is in when a suspect who shot an unarmed man voluntarily provides four hours of un-cross examined testimony to a grand jury without taking the Fifth. On August 9, Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned down 18-year-old African American Michael Brown. Since…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professir of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions There is a tendency in legal academia to parse subjects into narrow domains. The UN Committee Against Torture’s Concluding Observations on the United States ( http://www.ushrnetwork.org/news-updates/cat-concluding-observations-press-release for the USHRN press release and a…

November 21, 2014 The Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) calls for the upholding of the rule of law in relation to the death of Michael Brown. Michael Brown’s death and the subsequent protests in Ferguson remind us of the consequences when the community loses faith and trust in America’s…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions After the Ferguson non-indictment, the suggestion was made that all police should wear body cameras.  This suggestion while well-intended, gives me pause for two reasons. First, in our inimical style the proposal…

Read SALT statement released November 21, 2014 on Ferguson, Missouri

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/27111-the-cia-wants-to-destroy-thousands-of-internal-emails-covering-spy-operations-and-other-activities Here they go again. Do you remember Jose Rodriguez, head of the Counterrorism Center, destruction of the torture tapes in violation of the spirit at least of a federal…

By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions http://justsecurity.org/17628/full-transcript-united-states-appearance-committee-convention-torture/ – transcript of the U.S. periodic review by the UN Committee Against Torture The riveting to watch video of the periodic review – http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/cat-53rd-session-united-states-of-america/ Each sovereign has the…

By Brooks Holland As many section members may know, the Washington Supreme Court in 2012 adopted a rule permitting non-lawyers to practice law as limited license legal technicians, or “LLLTs.” These LLLTs may practice law only within a limited scope of authority. For example, an LLLT may obtain…

By George Critchlow A Hispanic student raised in poverty in central California will be the first person in her immigrant family to graduate from college.  Her goal is to work with people of limited means on issues affecting families, communities, and employment.  She would like to be a lawyer…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions I. The Good News The best thing about the US presentation was the admission formally to the UN Committee Against Torture and to the world at large that the United States had…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for U.S. Torture Prosecutions “Everything must change, so that everything stays the same.” Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), Giuseppe di Lampedusa Case in point. ” In contrast to…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions From what I heard of the meeting, among other things, Committee member Mohdvig from Denmark asked the United States Government delegation about accountability for senior US officials and the lawyers with regard…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions We may be witnessing the dismantling of the peremptory norm against torture. Later today, the United States periodic report will be reviewed by the UN Committee Against Torture.  We shall see whether…

Benjamin G. Davis, University of Toledo College of Law, AdvCoates for US Torture Prosecutions Where is Dick Cheney filling my television with his defene of the enhanced interrogation program that we all know is torture. This week of the UN Committee Against Torture review – first since 2006 – can…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions I go to my usual national security blog sites and see a silence about the UN Committee Against Torture deliberations. On television there is a local angle blurb on Michael Brown’s family…

Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Advcoated for US Torture Prosecutions In the week of the UN Committee Against Torture review of the United States for the first time since 2006, President Obama is out of the country, George Bush has a book…