En Banc 9th Circuit Reverses Panel in Extradition Case

On August 4, the en banc 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a 9th Circuit panel decision that extradition courts could not consider whether evidence submitted to them was obtained via torture. The en banc 9th Circuit held that torture-obtained evidence is fundamentally incompetent evidence under the Due Process Clause and that an extradition judge may evaluate whether the government's evidence was obtained by coercion in order to determine whether the government made a sufficient probable cause showing to support extradition. That decision is consistent with the amicus brief Skadden lawyers wrote and submitted on a pro bono basis to the 9th Circuit on behalf of the ACLU of Southern California, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other public interest groups.