Convictions: Slate's blog on legal issues

High Crimes?

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 punishment for senior Bush administration officials. The effort is reportedly being 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 law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning  conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

... "For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful 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 ...