Reagan's DOJ Prosecuted Water-boarder's

[lame54]

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-doj-prosecuted-texas-sheriff-in-1983-for-waterboarding-prisoners.html

Reagan's DOJ Prosecuted Texas Sheriff For Waterboarding Prisoners
Written by Jason Leopold
Tuesday, 21 April 2009 21:47
By Jason Leopold

George W. Bush’s Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near-drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn’t even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case – which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later – was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.

The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers – Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury – for violating “professional standards.”

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Cue The Defenders of the Status Quo

"How can Holder know if confessed (in writing and on national television) torturers committed a crime? He can't prosecute until he has the facts!"

[jaxx]

2. Well if Ronney thought it was illegal.....

Good find! How will they wiggle out of this one.