NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–April 14, 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union today condemned a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicating that it will not prosecute two lawyers who helped develop the Bush-era torture program. In a letter to Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco Nuñez dated March 1 but made public yesterday, the DOJ stated that it would not prosecute Jay Bybee and John Yoo, former DOJ lawyers who authored memos that provided the legal basis for the torture program, because an earlier investigation by Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis concluded that Bybee and Yoo exercised poor judgment but did not violate ethical norms. Margolis was not a criminal investigator, however, and he did not have the mandate to examine issues of criminal responsibility.
