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Criminal,
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Sep. 15, 2010

Wrong in All Aspects

The 9th Circuit was wrong to prevent victims of torture from suing because privileged state secrets might later become crucial evidence, by Erwin Chemerinsky of UCI School of Law.

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law UC Berkeley School of Law

Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).


By Erwin Chemerinsky


Long ago, in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), the Supreme Court declared that "[t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury." Unfortunately, this was obviously forgotten by the judges in the majority of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision that victims of torture could not bring...

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