"Hangings? C'mon, Dean Velvel -- shouldn't a liberal like yourself view that as violating the Eighth Amendment?"

David Lat has at that law school that's hosting a conference about whether George Bush should be convicted of war crimes — and executed.

What law school is this? It's the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, which I'd never heard of. I note that it's a law school that does not require the LSAT:

Massachusetts School of Law interviews every applicant who wishes to attend the school. We believe the true measure of a person’s capabilities to be a good lawyer cannot be measured solely by sterile statistical data, which can never measure drive, dedication, obstacles overcome, perseverance, and a good heart....

Also, because of the considerable criticisms of the LSAT, Massachusetts School of Law does not consider the LSAT when making admissions decisions. Instead, it considers an essay test that the school itself has developed. The test is given at the time of the interview, and, most importantly, it is read and graded by a full time MSLAW professor who, based upon years of practical and academic experience, is well qualified to assess an applicant’s ability to think and write well. The requirement of a mandatory interview, the review of an applicant’s entire record in school and the work force, and the essay aptitude test enable the Admissions Committee to identify worthy students who would be denied admission to traditional law schools simply because of their LSAT scores.

This is an intriguing idea, actually! An applicant has to be interested enough in them to go there for an interview and to sit down and take a test. You can tell a lot about lawyerly aptitude by the way a person presents himself (or herself) in an interview. And I haven't seen the test, but if it's done right, it could very well be as good as the LSAT — and probably is more like a law school exam.

And, frankly, the conference isn't even such a terrible idea. It got our attention, it's a little bit inflammatory, but if the issue of war crimes is taken seriously and presented in an appropriately legal fashion, what is so bad about it?

ADDED: My Wisconsin Law School colleague Anuj Desai emails:

[Massachusetts School of Law Dean Lawrence] Velvel was the one who wrote an amicus brief in Grutter arguing that it is the over-reliance on the LSAT that necessitates affirmative action. You see whispers of the idea in Justice Thomas's opinion. (i.e. in the idea that Michigan's real gov't interest was not simply "diversity", but rather being elite and exclusive, while simultaneously having racial diversity).

From the amicus brief (PDF)

The type of affirmative action practiced by the University of Michigan Law School, and at issue in this case, is one that has been necessitated in significant part by the numbers-oriented admissions tools used by most law schools, especially the schools' heavy focus on the LSAT. Perhaps no other tool used in graduate school admissions has come under such attack in recent years as the LSAT, which for many decades has been the only admissions test approved by the ABA's Section of Legal Education. Because MSL uses a “holistic” approach to admissions, not a by-the-numbers approach, and does not rely in any way on the LSAT or any other standardized test, it does not need to use affirmative action in order to enroll qualified minority students. Rather, it considers a variety of factors when determining whether to admit a candidate, but race is not a “plus” or special factor in admissions decisions. In fact, MSL's admissions committee generally is not even aware of the race of an applicant. Yet MSL's minority enrollments are generally higher, year after year, than those of scores of the predominantly white ABA accredited schools. This is true even though New England has a low percentage of minorities, and a low percentage of minority college graduates, in comparison with such sections of the country as the Mid-Atlantic States, the South, and the industrialized upper Midwest where the instant case originates, and in comparison with major urban areas such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, which are home to millions of minority citizens and to many law schools.