Author of '02 Memo on Torture: 'Gentle' Soul for a Harsh Topic [View All]

The Bush administration is distancing itself from a memorandum prepared two years ago by a government lawyer asserting that the president's power to use torture to extract information from suspected terrorists is almost unlimited.

Before the recent controversy concerning his work, however, some of the officials who received the memorandum worked diligently to elevate the lawyer, Jay S. Bybee, to the federal bench. Nominated by President Bush in 2002 and confirmed by the Senate last year, he now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Former colleagues say the judge, whose chambers are in Las Vegas, is a serious, soft-spoken, reflective man. They say it is difficult to reconcile his discussion of torture in clinical, dispassionate detail with his background. A former legal academic, Judge Bybee told Meridian, a Mormon magazine, last year that he hoped to be remembered for his probity.

"I would like my headstone to read, `He always tried to do the right thing,' " Judge Bybee said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/politics/24MEMO.html