A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to hold former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo accountable for authoring the “torture memos” that permitted harsh abuses on detainees. The former so-called “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla had sued Yoo for devising the legal justification for his imprisonment and torture. Padilla was jailed for 43 months without charge in a Navy brig in South Carolina and is now serving a 17-year sentence. In its ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Yoo is immune because U.S. torture laws were unclear when the memos were produced. A similar lawsuit filed by Padilla against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was thrown out last year.