Today comes a bizarre follow-up to Deb’s post regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert in a case involving legal accountability for high officials. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy , Orin Kerr points to news that a group of legal academics is planning to convene a conference to plan the prosecution, trial, and punishmentfor senior Bush administration officials. The effort is reportedlybeing led by Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover:
“This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of lawthat have occurred,” said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounderof the school. “It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizationalstructures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, ifneed be, to the ends of the Earth.”
“We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable incourts of justice,” Velvel said. “And we must insist on appropriatepunishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upontop German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s.”
… “For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo tospend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be apowerful lesson to future American leaders,” Velvel said.
Somehow, I don’t think this is what the Supreme Court had in mind when they granted cert …
