Beth Stephens ’79 has helped win a U.S. Supreme Court case in favor of Somali civilians seeking damages for torture and other human rights abuses. Stephens was second chair at oral argument in Samantar v. Yousuf, in which her clients sought to hold accountable Mohamed Ali Samantar, Somalia’s former defense minister who now lives in Virginia. Samantar claimed immunity under a U.S. statute on the grounds that he committed the acts on behalf of his government, but the Court held that the statute does not protect individual foreign government officials. A professor at the Rutgers School of Law-Camden, Stephens is a board member at the Center for Justice and Accountability, which can now pursue its case against Samantar.