Is Justice Possible After Torture?

[marmar]

from The American Prospect:


Is Justice Possible After Torture?

The U.S. decision five years ago to torture detainees has infected a generation of terrorism cases where it might have once been possible to do justice -- but may not be anymore.

Deborah Pearlstein | August 17, 2007 | web only



While Washington was preoccupied last week with expanding the executive branch's warrantless surveillance powers, Jane Mayer's latest article (featured in the Aug. 13 issue of The New Yorker) offered a chilling reminder of how the current administration has exercised its intelligence-gathering powers so far.

Members of Congress who will take up such questions again this fall would be wise to add Mayer's piece to their summer reading list. For among the article’s many disturbing descriptions of the treatment of detainees held in secret CIA prisons since 2002 lay this news: The Pakistani man (a man Mayer describes as a “terrorist who had a history of staging kidnappings”) convicted of the brutal slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has new grounds for appeal. The grounds? According to recent statements by U.S. officials, another high-level terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), had himself confessed to the Pearl killing under interrogation at one of the CIA prisons, where he was held in secret and reportedly tortured for more than two years. The Pearl conviction is now in question.

Never mind that there appears to be no evidence to corroborate KSM’s confession of beheading Pearl, or that the players closest to the Pearl murder, including the lead U.S. investigator and involved CIA officials, reject the idea that KSM played a role. Never mind, too, that the U.S. Intelligence Science Board recently concluded that no study has ever found that torture or coercion produces reliable information. And never mind that the “simulated” drowning to which KSM was apparently subjected can cause devastating short- and long-term effects, including neurological damage, respiratory panic attacks, and a host of other physical and psychological impairments, according to a recent report by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First.

What this latest turn makes clear is how the U.S. decision five years ago to torture detainees has infected a generation of terrorism cases where it might have once been possible to do justice but might no longer be. These cases are changing what it means for justice to be done.

The U.S. Constitution (along with numerous provisions of international law) has prohibited the introduction of evidence obtained by coercion since the nation’s founding. As the Supreme Court explained in the 1944 case Ashcraft v. Tennessee, some official abuse is “so inherently coercive that its very existence is irreconcilable with the possession of mental freedom” sufficient to make meaningful statements of fact. Indeed, coercion to force a “confession” was thought inconsistent with the very idea of republican government. As the Court put it, “There have been, and are now, certain foreign nations with ... governments which convict individuals with testimony obtained by police organizations possessed of an unrestrained power to seize persons suspected of crimes against the state, hold them in secret custody, and wring from them confessions by physical or mental torture.” But “so long as the Constitution remains the basic law of our Republic,” the Court promised, “America will not have that kind of government.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_justice_possible_after_torture

[Solly Mack]

1. ...

...

America has gone to shit

[marmar]

3. Perhaps it's time for a "mercy flush."

:cry:

[Kagemusha]

2. They convicted Padilla, didn't they?

Perhaps it should scare us more if juries will believe anything if you wave enough terror in front of them.