Back in October, John Hutson, former Judge Advocate General and Dean of Franklin Pierce Law School, changed his registration to vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary and endorsed Barack Obama.  Hutson, a life-long Republican, had grown increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"We fight wars to uphold the rule of law," he said in 2004, "but then we don't uphold the rule of law in our conduct of the war."  Hutson eventually becoming a key leader among former military officials pushing back against Bush policies on Guantanamo Bay and torture, worried about the precedent it would set for future conflicts.  

"We are running the risk," Hutson said in announcing his endorsement of Barack Obama, "of historians looking back on the first few years of the 21st century and saying 'That's where America came off the rails, that's where we began to be the next former world power.'" Obama, Hutson argued, would be the candidate best able to bring about the changes we need.

And then on Monday, more than eighty attorneys volunteering their time on behalf of detainees at Guantanamo Bay collectively endorsed Obama for President:

The writ of habeas corpus dates to the Magna Carta, and was enshrined by the Founders in our Constitution. The Administration's attack on habeas corpus rights is dangerous and wrong. America needs a President who will not triangulate this issue. We need a President who will restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community. Based on our work with him, we are convinced that Senator Obama can do this because he truly feels these issues "in his bones."

We should accept nothing less than the utmost clarity and forcefulness when it comes to restoring the rule of law, ending for good our current administration's policy of tolerating torture, and rejecting the illegal detention of hundreds in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  

Among the signatures on the letter were:

Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, retired federal appeals court judge John Gibbons, Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner, and retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who was the Navy's top JAG officer from 2000 to 2002 and who is now the dean of the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.

The group of lawyers felt moved to make an endorsement after hearing months of talk on the campaign trail that Obama had not acted during his time in the United States Senate:

When others stood back, Senator Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the Administration's efforts in the Fall of 2006 to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us.

Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates.

When others were reluctant and cautious at taking on the fight, Obama stepped up, working with attorneys behind the scenes to organize opposition.  Despite their efforts, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 passed.  The Boston Globe writes:

The constitutionality of that law, which was part of the Military Commissions Act, is now being challenged before the Supreme Court in one of the most closely-watched cases this term.

As president, Obama would be a fierce advocate for restoring our civil liberties and carry with him that respect for human dignity that should underpin every decision made in the White House.

Indeed, one of the trademarks of Obama's time in the US Senate was his early alliance with Samantha Power, one of the most forceful advocates in academia for humanitarian intervention in refugee crises and genocides around the world, and whose brilliant book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide documented a century of our government's studied indifference to human rights violations around the world.

As many of the foreign policy experts who opposed the war in Iraq have gathered around Obama's candidacy, so too have legal experts eager to turn the page on the Bush administration.