Interrogation: Interrogation Abuses: Civil Liability

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court denied Mohammed Jawad’s petition for certiorari.

It looks like the DOJ is going to invoke the state secrets privilege after all in the latest CIA torture suit brought by former detainees, marking the first time that the Trump administration will use this powerful legal tool. But in an interesting variation on the typical post-9/11 state secrets cases, this time it is the defendants rather than the plaintiffs who seek to introduce information that the government alleges may harm national security.

In a decision handed down today, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a district court decision dimissing a tort suit against CACI Premier Technology Inc., a contractor at the Abu Ghraib prison; the district court had ruled that the suit presented a political question. The lawsuit, Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology et al., alleges that the company engaged in torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of the four plaintiffs during their imprisonment in Abu Ghraib.

I've long been a huge fan of (Retired) Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, not least because his prized possessions include a scorecard from Game 3 of the 1932 World Series--better known to baseball history as the "called shot" game--which he attended, in person, at the age of 12(!).