Supreme Court Justice Scalia: The Constitution doesn't prohibit torture

[kpete]

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia weighs in on whether it's legal for America to torture prisoners.


Scalia tells a Swiss radio network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.

Scalia says nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/12/antonin-scalia-constitution-torture_n_6316240.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/12/1351360/-Supreme-Court-Justice-Scalia-The-Constitution-doesn-t-prohibit-torture#

[True Blue Door]

1. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits impeaching a Supreme Court Justice for being a psychopath.

[muntrv]

2. Fine. Let's torture Scalia, since his activities are "terroristic."

[plcdude]

3. cruel and

o a 6th graders can refute this. Why do we let them get away with this crap?

[cyberswede]

4. Did "terrorists" even exist when the constitution was written?

Scalia says nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists.

Seems like a reach for a loophole to me.

[dembotoz]

7. torture is hardly new-neither is state sponsored torture

what the victims were called is merely a question of semantics

[Maedhros]

5. Ahem.

The Eighth Amendment and Justice Brennan beg to differ, Scalia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "cruel and unusual punishments [shall not be] inflicted". The general principles the United States Supreme Court relied on to decide whether or not a particular punishment was cruel and unusual were determined by Justice William Brennan.[3] In Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), Justice Brennan wrote, "There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is 'cruel and unusual'."

The "essential predicate" is "that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity," especially torture.
"A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion." (Furman v. Georgia temporarily suspended capital punishment for this reason.)
"A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society."
"A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary."

And he added: "The function of these principles, after all, is simply to provide means by which a court can determine whether a challenged punishment comports with human dignity. They are, therefore, interrelated, and, in most cases, it will be their convergence that will justify the conclusion that a punishment is "cruel and unusual." The test, then, will ordinarily be a cumulative one: if a punishment is unusually severe, if there is a strong probability that it is inflicted arbitrarily, if it is substantially rejected by contemporary society, and if there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than some less severe punishment, then the continued infliction of that punishment violates the command of the Clause that the State may not inflict inhuman and uncivilized punishments upon those convicted of crimes."

Continuing, he wrote that he expected that no state would pass a law obviously violating any one of these principles, so court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment would involve a "cumulative" analysis of the implication of each of the four principles. In this way the United States Supreme Court "set the standard that a punishment would be cruel and unusual [,if] it was too severe for the crime, [if] it was arbitrary, if it offended society's sense of justice, or if it was not more effective than a less severe penalty."[4]

[Solly Mack]

6. Some real sickos in office.

[unblock]

8. it's not actually been a constitutional challenge. it's a violation of federal law and int'l treaty

his point is not relevant. no one's claiming that a law was passed duly enabling torture, and that it complied with all treaty requirements. if that had happened, only then could someone argue that such a law was unconstitutional.

in fact, torture is illegal because it violates the geneva convention (and probably other treaties we have signed) as well as u.s. federal law. such laws are clearly constitutional. there's no debate on the power of the government to limit its own tactics.



this is leaving aside the obvious argument that scalia is a terrorist, a psychopathic dipshit, and generally forgets about the bill of rights except when interpreting it in favor of big businesses.

imho.

[randr]

9. Does the Magna Carta supercede our Constitution?

[GreatGazoo]

10. what an embarrassment that guy is

And he misses the bigger point, perhaps by design -- Torture does NOT work. You can get people to say ANYTHING, confess to ANYTHING, admit to being a witch or some other nonsense but torture didn't get bin Laden or stop any terrorism.

Torture is good for suppressing dissent and intimidating people but, contrary to misguided macho fantasies and Keifer Sutherland's TV show, little else.

It isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing as Mr Scalia would have us think: Conservatives famously asked for "a government you could drown in a bathtub" -- not the other way around.

[moondust]

11. Moral midget. n/t

[spin]

12. The Constitution is a very short document ...

It's written on four sheets and has 4543 words (including signatures).

There are a lot of things that the Constitution does not cover.

[PoliticAverse]

13. He's wrong. n/t

[JaneyVee]

14. 8th Amendment?

[hifiguy]

15. Fat Tony would have fit right in

to Mussolini's Italy or the Austrian corporal's Germany. Human sewage.

[Rex]

16. How can he demonstrate a fundamental ignorance of the 8th amendment

and still be considered a viable judge?

[SamKnause]

17. What an utterly disgusting 'human being'.