John Hutson
United States admiral
John Dudley Hutson (born 1947) is a former United States Navy officer, attorney, and former Judge Advocate General of the Navy. He is a former dean and president of University of New Hampshire School of Law in Concord, New Hampshire, having served in the position from 2000 to 2010.
Early life and education
Hutson holds a B.A. from Michigan State University, a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School, and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Career
Open letter to President Bush of September 7, 2004
On September 7, 2004, Hutson and seven other retired officers wrote an open letter to President Bush expressing their concern over the number of allegations of abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody. In it they wrote:
We urge you to commit – immediately and publicly – to support the creation of a comprehensive, independent commission to investigate and report on the truth about all of these allegations, and to chart a course for how practices that violate the law should be addressed.
January 2005 congressional testimony
In January 2005, Dean Hutson, along with Yale Law School dean Harold Koh, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general of the United States, because of his alleged role in attempting to provide legal guidance to the U.S. military justifying abusive interrogation practices, including that the war on terror "renders obsolete" and "renders quaint" aspects of the Geneva Conventions.
In November 2005, his activities led the NHCLU to name Hutson their recipient of that year's Bill of Rights Award; Hutson had previously been the featured speaker at the 2004 annual meeting of that organization.
July 2005 congressional testimony
Hutson testified before the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee on July 14, 2005, offering his opinion on the detention of "unlawful combatants".
Hutson said that he had been an early supporter of trial by military commission—provided those military commissions were conducted fairly. But he thought that the proposed process was flawed, and there had been too long a delay.
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