Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of Detainee Affairs Curtis Stimson's comments urging corporate America to punish law firms that defend Gitmo detainees are causing the legal community to come together in a rare display of near-universal condemnation. Here's a letter signed by over 50 law school deans around the country objecting to Stimson's statements:

As law deans and professors, we find Secretary Stimson's statement to be contrary to basic tenets of American law. We teach our students that lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that even the most despised and unpopular individuals and groups receive zealous and effective legal representation. Our American legal tradition has honored lawyers who, despite their personal beliefs, have zealously represented mass murderers, suspected terrorists, and Nazi marchers. At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.

Hear, hear. They are urging the administration to "promptly and unequivocally repudiate" Stimson's statements; I don't think that goes near far enough. Stimson should not only be fired from his position, he should be brought before the ABA's board of ethics for his clear misconduct. His statements are nothing less than an attempt to intimidate law firms into not representing clients; it is the equivalent of the mafia intimidating witnesses. Both actions compromise the integrity of the legal process and both should be seriously punished. Jonathan Adler sums up the ethical breach pretty well:

It is well established that prosecutors have greater ethical obligation than private attorneys and, in particular, have an obligation to ensure the fairness of judicial proceedings - even where this may undermine the government's ability to secure a conviction. Stimson is not a prosecutor in his current position, but he is a former JAG and U.S. attorney, so he knows the rules. More important in this instance, he is an official involved with the detention and prosecution of detainees. He is, after all, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of Detainee Affairs. Insofar as detainees are entitled to judicial process, whether habeas proceedings to challenge their detention or trials for alleged violations of the law of war, they are entitled to the defense counsel of their choice, not the government's. Deliberate action by a government attorney to interfere with that choice is unethical, and contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of the relevant rules of legal ethics.