Lawyers Can Join Doctors to Remove Stain on Professions

H. Thomas Wells Jr., came to St. Louis earlier this week. He's a lawyer from Birmingham, Ala., and current president of the American Bar Association, the nation's largest professional association of lawyers.

Wells was here for an early "Law Day" speech to the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis. Law Day, ordained by Congress and held each May 1, asks the legal profession to organize celebrations of the "ideals of equality and justice under law" as well as "the cultivation of the respect for law that is so vital to the democratic way of life."

The ideals of Law Day have been put to a special test this year — and the profession's reputation will depend on the nature and speed of its response.

In April, the Justice Department publicly released a series of legal memoranda that make clear that senior lawyers in the department played a central role in approving brutal interrogation techniques widely believed to constitute torture.

Among the tactics for which lawyers came up with legal justifications: Depriving prisoners of sleep for as long as 11 days, forcing them into cramped boxes with insects, stripping them of clothing, slamming them into walls, waterboarding them and pouring 41-degree water over them. In a masterpiece of lawyerly hairsplitting, 40 degrees was deemed too cold.

The American Bar Association, after the revelations in 2004 of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, publicly condemned the "use of torture, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment upon persons within the custody or under the physical control of the United States government ...

and any endorsement or authorization of such measures by government lawyers."

Now there is irrefutable evidence, in the form of written memos, that prominent members of the legal profession endorsed or authorized degrading treatment of the type condemned in 2004.

So now what? Wells, the ABA president, told us that the ABA "has long condemned the use of torture and called for the U.S. to adhere to treaties that prohibit its use."

But he urged that there be "no rush to judge the lawyers who gave advice concerning the legal boundaries of permissible interrogation," adding that "the courts, Congress and other relevant bodies should be permitted to do their work."

The ABA and other leading bar associations are among the "relevant bodies" with work to do. They can take a lesson from the medical profession, which has begun a more progressive and emphatic response.

American Medical Association President Nancy Nielsen and Board Chair Joseph Heyman wrote to President Barack Obama on April 17 affirming that "any involvement by physicians in torture ... violates core ethical obligations of the medical profession" which require "physicians to support victims of torture, to report the use of torture, and to strive to change situations in which torture is practiced."

They pledged to work toward assuring that "all physicians are fully aware of their ethical obligations, that physicians are not put in ethically untenable positions, and that actions like those alleged do not occur under U.S. jurisdiction."

Lawyers should do no less. Principled lawyers and doctors must work together to protect their professions from being pushed into darkness. That can begin with the ABA and AMA collaborating — to prevent professional complicity with torture.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.