I imagine it’s quite challenge being a defense attorney for a client who was photographed torturing people. But, as my friend Poppy noted, this argument probably won’t persuade too many people.
A lawyer for Charles Graner, accused ringleader in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, has compared piling naked prisoners into pyramids to cheerleader shows and said leashing inmates was also acceptable prisoner control.
Graner’s attorney said piling naked prisoners into pyramids and leading them by a leash were acceptable methods of prisoner control. He compared this to pyramids made by cheerleaders at sports events and parents putting tethers on toddlers.
“Don’t cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year? Is that torture?” Guy Womack, Graner’s attorney, said in opening arguments on Monday to the 10-member U.S. military jury at the reservist’s court-martial.
I guess this is a twist on the old legal adage: when you have the facts, argue the facts; when you have the law, argue the law; when you have neither, come up with the most painfully stupid analogy anyone’s ever heard.
I can’t imagine where someone would even come up with the idea of downplaying the significance of torture by pointing to cheerleaders’ pyramids…
