Should waterboarding be a disqualifier for the death penalty?

[Stinky The Clown]

(I personally lean in opposition to the death penalty. But that is NOT what this thread is about. To keep it simple, if you absolutely must make a death penalty speech, please start your own thread. Further, if you can't participate in the thread by accepting the stipulation that the DP is a possibility, again, please refrain from commenting.)

This guy ......



....... along with three others, is about to go on trial before a military tribunal as a war criminal. In the meantime, the feds have admitted to water boarding him. Presumably, some of the evidence that will be used against him was gained when they did that.

No doubt this is a death penalty trial. If that's the case and if he was water boarded, should that be a mitigating factor in imposition of the death penalty? Or might it go even further and should he be disqualified for the death penalty because he was tortured?

(For lurkers from other sites: I am in no way ready to coddle any of the people who had anything to do with 9/11. But neither am I willing to compromise our rule of law for vengeance. I'll leave that to you Calvinists.)

[Rex]

1. A 'court of law' coming to a conclusion of death based on torture

is unethical.

[Solly Mack]

3. and even a vote of guilty (to my thinking)

As under torture you are likely to confess to anything and everything

[mac2]

4. I remember the Nuremberg Trials where they

put the Japanese torturers to death. Why not the US ones doing it in our name. We learned in WWII and Vietnam that torture never results in the truth. The tortured person says anything to stop the pain.

[ben_meyers]

8. You may want to correct your subject line mac. n/t

[PDJane]

2. IMHO, torture

completely abrogates the trial and the evidence. Period.

Using evidence obtained by torture is not civilized behaviour, and has been widely acknowledged as such for a very long time.

It's just more proof of rogue state status.

[mac2]

5. It is to create fear among the people so they will stay in line.

It's not about the truth but about making "untruth"...the truth by the elite devils.

[EFerrari]

6. They tainted the evidence.

If our justice system were still functioning, these cases would be thrown out no matter the actual guilt of these parties.

But, since Bush has perverted our justice system, these cases may well go forward.

If they do, we'll all know just how f@cked we are.

[mac2]

7. I know after so many years of destroying America

we are fucked by those we trusted with power.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. 'Tainted' is the word that came to mind for me as well

Even if the preponderance of evidence weighs heavily against the defendants, the fact that confessions were extracted under torture casts a shadow over the proceedings. It's almost as though the neocon lawyers want to flaunt their contempt for the legal system - replacing it with a malleable system that they can distort for their own purposes as it suits them. Collectively, they're the biggest enemy of democracy currently in existence - and by extension enemies of humanity.

[2Design]

9. yes - but we saw recently here the video of what our own enforcement

does to people - that woman they assaulted and attacked and pulled off her clothes and left her naked for over six hours and had both men and women stripping her - seemed like rape without penetration to me - and this is part of what we know - how about granger and what he did in our prison systems before he went to iraq -

torture admission is not evidence - how many of us would say anything - even john mccain did while being tortured for six years -

wonder what this administrations jesus would do??? I do not believe the behavior of these people toward other human beings - seem to remember something about turning the other cheek and not eye for eye

oh well - we obviously don't have a say here - these are criminals running the country and they have pundits and others to monopolize the media to gain their marketing -

reminds me of corporations and their marketing to employees about what is good for the company -

[aquart]

10. It should get the case throw out of court. With prejudice.

I live 32 blocks from Ground Zero and I want nothing to do with evidence obtained by torture in this or any other case. Period.

[Disturbed]

12. I am against the Death Penalty.

These cases are repugnant. Secret trials without representation for the Accused based upon the Torture of the Accused is what is going on here. What has Amerika become? The same as Nations that were condemned for their treatment of people during WW2.

[gratuitous]

13. Poison fruit from a poisoned tree

If our Constitutional and treaty obligations are to mean anything other than words on paper, then we can not, must not convict anyone except by rules of criminal procedure in place at the time any crime was committed. Enacting or passing new rules and new laws in order to convict anyone is abhorrent to our system of justice.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Of course it should.

A state that captures people, tortures them, holds them in secret detention centers for years without charges, and then proposes to run them through a kangaroo court and execute them is a state that deserves no respect.

Mitigating factor? The torture - and it is not limited to waterboarding, they just want to fool you with that little diversion- nullifies the entire legal claim against these people. They have to be let go. If any of them actually were involved in 9-11 that is simply too bad. We fucked up.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. We agree, broadly ......

But maybe this isn't a black and white thing when it comes to letting these guys just walk.

Let's say, for example, that we have good, solid, honest, legally obtained proof that they did what they're accused of having done. And let's say they get convicted on that basis.

In that case, I would be okay with life without parole.

I guess my point in the OP was really about torture, simply on its face, disqualifies a defendant for the DP, not for all form of punishment.

Now, all that being said, if all their essential evidence is the result of torture, the guy has to walk. Period.

No doubt we could do a companion thread on how to deal with torturers ..... including the worst ones of the lot, the ones who decide to do it.

[catnhatnh]

15. "Wrong, Stephanie not know that.???"

...Johnny Five
Short Circuit....
Which is taking a quote from a comedy to comment on a tragedy...I would kiss KSM on the cheek and hand him a bus ticket and a pint of scotch before I would accept the death penalty from a secret tribunal. And that's a huge difference-in America a death penalty requires a trial. He might kill me or mine but could never kill the ideal that used to be America...the largest threat to this country wears cowboy boots and spreads lies.