BYU NewsNet - BYU alum ensnared in torture controversy

Federal judge and BYU alumnus Jay Bybee is caught in a firestorm of controversy this week regarding his role in the approval of harsh interrogation methods by the Bush administration.

Bybee, who served in the Bush White House as an assistant attorney general and received both his undergraduate and law degrees from BYU, has been widely credited as the principal author of a Justice Department memo that justified the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” against suspected terrorists by CIA and military operatives.

He currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Many human rights and left-leaning advocacy groups have said the techniques constitute torture, a violation of the Geneva Convention, and have called for Congress to impeach Bybee and remove him from the bench.

MoveOn.org, a liberal online advocacy group, has urged its members to sign digital petitions asking Congress to begin the impeachment process.

“Jay Bybee showed no respect for our laws and isn’t fit to be a federal judge,” the group wrote in an e-mail to supporters last week. “President Obama said [in a primetime press conference on April 29] that torture ‘corrodes the character of a country.’ He’s right. Jay Bybee, who violated the law by coming up with a ‘legal’ rationale for waterboarding and other acts of torture, isn’t qualified to hold a position charged with upholding our Constitution.”

Many newspaper editorial boards have joined the call for Bybee’s resignation or impeachment, including The New York Times and The Salt Lake Tribune.

“The [Justice Department] memorandum is an indictment of Bybee himself, evidence that he is morally, ethically and legally unfit to serve on the federal bench,” The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board wrote on Wednesday. “Bybee, a graduate of Brigham Young University and its law school, should show himself capable of better judgment — and of remorse — by resigning his lifetime appointment. If he does not, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings to force him from the bench.”

However, despite the uprising on the left, many Americans do not believe Bybee should be punished for his role in authoring the memo.

Hyrum Salmond, a senior from Pittsburgh and outgoing president of the BYU College Democrats, said he does not feel Bybee should be held responsible.

“Bybee’s involvement [with the memo] does not weaken my trust in his role as a judge, nor does it create a desire to have him impeached,” he said. “I believe that he was performing the task he was assigned and I believe the majority of guilt, if there is any, lies with those who assigned him the task. I do not believe it is fair to punish Bybee for doing the job he was asked to do.”

A new poll out Wednesday indicates that most Americans agree with Salmond. While 60 percent of respondents questioned in the CNN survey felt waterboarding and other techniques approved by the Bybee memo were forms of torture, a similar majority, 57 percent, does not desire Congressional action.

“Roughly one in five Americans believe those techniques were torture but nonetheless approve of the decision to use those procedures against suspected terrorists,” said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. “That goes a long way toward explaining why a majority don’t want to see former Bush officials investigated.”

Salmond said he believes Bybee deserves the benefit of the doubt.

“I believe he truly thought he was saving American lives,” Salmond said. “And while I may disagree with his thought process, I do not believe his life should be ruined over it. I think it would be in the best interest of everyone for the Obama administration to just move on.”

Nevertheless, a vocal minority still strongly opposes Bybee’s actions.

“What his involvement really does is make me embarrassed to attend BYU,” said Peter Snyder, a junior from Annandale, Va.

Bybee graduated magna cum laude from BYU in 1977, before earning his Juris Doctorate from J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1980. President Bush appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2003.

The Daily Universe attempted to contact Bybee for this story, but he was unavailable for comment.