Hornberger's Blog   Torture and Kangaroo Justice Are Un-American
Justice Scalia’s remarks about torture reflect a fundamental
problem with conservative judges. While oftentimes sound on
economic liberty, they are absolutely atrocious with respect to
civil liberties.  Scalia’s approval of torture in certain
circumstances ignores an important point that every first-year
law student learns in his constitutional law course: that people
are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law —
and, equally important, are sometimes adjudged innocent when the
trial is ultimately held.  In other words, when the government
takes someone into custody and begins torturing him, how do we
know that that person is deserving of torture or has important
information that can be tortured out of him? Ordinarily, we
don’t permit the government to determine the guilt or innocence
of a person it is accusing of a crime. That’s the very purpose
of the trial.  Yet, under Scalia’s reasoning on torture (and
under the government’s