SHOULD HE CONTINUE TO RECEIVE HIS PENSION?
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
These two questions have stirred considerable debate in both the legal community and general public in south Texas. Normally it is not a subject that would provoke a response by us. But the tenor of those demanding the impeachment of Judge Kent and those who have said he should not receive his pension have caused us some concern. Now that the federal judge has sentenced to 33 months in prison, we decided to weigh in on these two important questions.
The impeachment question is the most difficult one to address. Normally we would say that Judge Kent should be impeached because he was convicted of a serious felony. But the current congressional view of when a federal judge should be impeached gives us pause for concern.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee was head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under the George W. Bush administration before the former president rewarded Bybee with a life time federal judgeship appointment. Judge Bybee was the top Justice Department official who signed the legal memorandums authorizing the CIA to use torture techniques such as water boarding, wall-slamming and sleep deprivation during the interrogation of “terror suspects” in the wake of 9/11. Judge Bybee’s conduct at the time violated clearly established international law, existing federal law, and America’s longstanding policies for the treatment of captured “enemies of war.”
A significant number of organizations and media outlets have begun pushing for either the resignation or impeachment of Judge Bybee. For example, The New York Times in a recent editorial said that Judge Bybee’s role in the torture approval process “made it clear that [he] was not fit to make judgments about the law and the Constitution.” (more…)
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