Donald Vance - Legal Case

Legal Case

On December 18, 2006, Vance filed suit against the US government and the former US Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that he was tortured and his rights of habeas corpus were violated. He is being represented by Arthur Loevy, Jon Loevy and Michael Kanovitz of the law firm Loevy & Loevy. His suit against the US government and Donald Rumsfeld allege that he was subject to the following unlawful procedures:

1. false arrest
2. unlawful detention
3. unlawful search and seizure
4. denial of right to counsel in interrogations - coerced statements
5. denial of Sixth Amendment right to counsel
6. denial of right to confront adverse witnesses
7. denial of right to present witnesses and evidence, and to have exculpatory evidence disclosed
8. unlawful conditions of detention
9. denial of necessary medical care
10. denial of property without due process

On September 21, 2007, Vance testified before a Senate Democratic Policy Committee on abuses in private security and reconstruction in Iraq during a hearing on Capitol Hill. He spoke about several events such as Shield Group Security brokering a deal with the South Korean government for small arms. He also spoke about Shield Group selling small arms to people operating within the U.S State Dept. During the proceeding Senator Byron Dorgan who chaired the committee asked Vance to turn over documents reflecting these weapon sales. Vance stated he would do so and also include hundreds of other pages including emails, photos and other documents reflecting SGS's criminal activities.

On September 26, 2007 during an Appropriations Committee hearing, Senator Byron Dorgan asked Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates to investigate the detention of Donald Vance. Senator Dorgan also relayed during the committee hearing that he has submitted a request to the inspector generals office for a complete investigation. Sen. Dorgan called Vance's detention by the U.S military "frightening".

On August 8, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago ruled that Vance and Nathan Ertel may proceed to sue Rumsfeld. Unless overturned, the ruling will allow these two plaintiffs to subpoena government documents and to compel sworn testimony about U.S. torture policies. In the past, courts have generally refrained from allowing such suits related to federal government conduct in zones of military conflict, granting government agents qualified immunity under the Bivens doctrine. In its opinion, the Court asked, "On what conceivable basis could a U.S. public official possibly conclude that it was constitutional to torture U.S. citizens?" With reference to the defendants' arguments for immunity, the Court wrote that "The theory would immunize every enlisted soldier in the war zone and every official in between … for deliberate torture and even coldblooded murder of civilian U.S. citizens." In October of 2011, however, the 7th Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, vacating the prior opinion.