Roberts opposed legal settlements for American POWs, against IRAQ!

[jefferson_dem]

This shit stinks. The more you learn about Roberts...

In Acree v. Republic of Iraq, "Judge Roberts went even further than his colleagues in supporting the Bush administration in a case that pitted the government against veterans of the first Gulf War," according to Tony Mauro of the Legal Times. John Norton Moore, co-counsel in the Acree case, writes,

The story of Acree began during the Gulf War, when American POWs were brutally tortured by the Iraqis. Saddam Hussein's secret services broke bones, shattered skulls, whipped, burned, shocked, beat, and urinated on American prisoners. One was so battered, it was later reported that his body looked like it had been dipped in indigo ink. Another had his teeth broken through electric shock. Many suffered through their own faked executions. They were starved so severely that one was forced to eat the scabs off his body. And because Iraq had publicly said it would use these POWs as "human shields," their spouses did not know whether they were wives or widows.

At the conclusion of the first Gulf War, 17 POWs and 37 of their family members brought a lawsuit against Saddam Hussien and Iraq in United States District Court--after repeated offers to have the case settled in international arbitration were ignored by the Iraqi government. The result was a verdict of almost $1 billion to the POWs and their families.

Mauro explains, "But once Saddam was toppled in 2003, the Bush administration wanted to protect the new Iraqi government from liability and intervened to block the award. Roberts, alone among the circuit judges who ruled with the government, said the federal courts did not even have jurisdiction to consider the victims' claim." Paul Kamenar of the conservative Washington Legal Foundation criticized this opinion arguing, "It sends the wrong message, that state sponsors of terrorism will not be held accountable, and it sends also a message to out troops, that our government is able to pull the rug out from under them when they have a victory against Iraq." On April 25th, 2005, the Supreme Court denied cert.

http://www.acsblog.org/cat-judicial-nominations.html