The complicity of lawyers in enabling government torture and abuse of prisoners is real. And the precedents that the US once set in prosecuting them clear:
The United States used to not only investigate attorneys for their role in the perpetuation of war crimes—it used to prosecute them. After World War II, as part of the Nuremberg trials, the United States prosecuted 16 German attorneys and judges for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in implementing the "Night and Fog" decree. Three of the defendants in the so-called "Justice Case" held positions in the Ministry of Justice and directly advised the justice minister. These attorneys also drafted laws and rules for the administration of German-occupied lands and the operations of certain special courts. Many of these laws—and the courts themselves—ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions. The German lawyers argued, in their defense, that the Conventions did not apply because their enemies did not subscribe to them. They were ultimately convicted of war crimes and were each sentenced to 10 years in prison. (A more complete discussion of these cases is available here.)
Why does AEI employ and give legitimacy to a war criminal, who defended the crushing of an innocent child’s testicles as legal?
The Dish 