Many organizations have begun calling for the resignation or impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Nevada after the Obama administration's released Bush-era torture memos in which the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department sanctioned the use of interrogation devices that many characterize as torture.

Judge Bybee was the head of that office at the time, and he signed the legal memorandums that approved of such coercive techniques as waterboarding, wall-slamming and sleep deprivation.  Then-President George Bush later appointed Bybee to the Ninth Circuit.