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Proposal; The Anti-Torture Amendment to the US Constitution.

BenBurch

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BenBurch
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Proposed text;

"Physical coercion or threat thereof shall not be used by the United States nor its military forces nor their contractors nor any other third parties reporting to the United States in the questioning of prisoners regardless of their nation of citizenship and regardless of the place or character of their imprisonment. Congress shall make appropriate laws to punish violations of this amendment."
 
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BenBurch said:
Proposed text;

"Physical coercion or threat thereof shall not be used by the United States nor its military forces nor their contractors nor any other third parties reporting to the United States in the questioning of prisoners regardless of their nation of citizenship and regardless of the place or character of their imprisonment. Congress shall make appropriate laws to punish violations of this amendment."
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So what?
 
It is sad that it has come to this... even the possibility of this would have been unthinkable 7 years ago, but the Bush administration has so corrupted the law and government that even a Constitutional amendment probably wouldn't even slow them down. The Constitution has never slowed them down before, after all.
 
So humiliating prisoners by stripping them down and photographing them in different suggestive poses is still ok right?

Anyone willing to torture will be willing to violate the constitution.
 
BenBurch said:
Any comments on wording, Joe? I think that covers it pretty well.
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I think you have to add something about signing statements and secret meetings not invalidating the Constitution... the Republicans just don't know!
 
Joe, that could be another amendment, but we really do not need it. We just need to have the next administration nail the Bush Cabal's asses to the wall for violating the Constitution; Because what they did will NOT stand up in court.
 
What counts as "physical coercion"? Seriously. Imagine a prisoner is being questioned by an interrogator, and the prisoner attempts to attack the interrogator. Guards physically restrain the prisoner to prevent him from attacking, and the questioning continues. Does this count as physical coercion? It certainly could, given the right judge. Hell, even physically restraining the prisoner to keep them from leaving the interrogation room could count as physical coercion. But it would be absurd to outlaw either practice.

Furthermore, most ammendments specify what Congress cannot do. Such ammendments are much easier to enforce than an ammendment that demands congress do something which isn't even well defined. Procedurally, such an ammendment is just begging to go to court time and time again (did Congress's definition of "physical coercion" meet the constitutional requirement? Are the specified punishments "appropriate", whatever that means? etc).
 
SoBitter said:
So humiliating prisoners by stripping them down and photographing them in different suggestive poses is still ok right?

Anyone willing to torture will be willing to violate the constitution.
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Well, since the Lindy England photos weren't taken in the context of prisoner interrogation (but rather simple punishment), yes, actually such an ammendment would do nothing to protect them. But existing laws already made those acts illegal, and as you suggest, there's no reason to think that enshrining such laws with a constitutional mandate would have helped prevent their violation.
 
Ziggurat said:
What counts as "physical coercion"? Seriously. Imagine a prisoner is being questioned by an interrogator, and the prisoner attempts to attack the interrogator. Guards physically restrain the prisoner to prevent him from attacking, and the questioning continues. Does this count as physical coercion? It certainly could, given the right judge. Hell, even physically restraining the prisoner to keep them from leaving the interrogation room could count as physical coercion. But it would be absurd to outlaw either practice.
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To my mind the meaning of "physical coercion" in the context of the draft amendment is pretty clear, and certainly doesn't include the hypothetical examples you cite, seriously.
 
BenBurch said:
No doubt lawyers would dress up the language a bit before anything like this went to a floor vote.
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Ben, don't quit your day job. :D Dress it up in a wedding gown seems to be more like it.

Your sentiments echo a remark I recall McCain making back in 2004 or 2005. (And not just him, some others in Congress were making similar observations and objections. ) The gist of his remark, as reported in NYT and W Post IIRC, was "the fact that we are even asking, and having to address, this question is a sign of something very wrong." His critique got quite a bit of press given his experiences on the other side of the coin, at that well known Hanoi resort.

DR
 
Southwind17 said:
To my mind the meaning of "physical coercion" in the context of the draft amendment is pretty clear,
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Well it isn't. You may know exactly what you want it to mean, but what it does mean in a court of law is a completely different question, and the only good answer at this stage is "whatever a judge wants it to mean". Which is not a situation we want, because 1) some judges may overstep their bounds, 2) it will encourage lawsuits in the hope that a judge may overstep their bounds, and 3) it will put a serious damper on interrogations and oversight of interrogations out of the fear of judges possibly stepping over their bounds. Even cases which get thrown out at the supreme court level can still cause quite a bit of turmoil and grief on their way up the chain.

And why does it need to be a constitutional ammendment anyways? Congress has it within their power to do this in ordinary law, and that only requires a majority. A constitutional ammendment requires a supermajority. Pushing a constitutional ammendment for a cause which can be handled by ordinary law seems, well... stupid, from a purely practical standpoint.
 
Ziggurat said:
Well it isn't. You may know exactly what you want it to mean, but what it does mean in a court of law is a completely different question, and the only good answer at this stage is "whatever a judge wants it to mean".
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So how many other commonly used words and phrases could/do you apply this argument to? Here are a few commonly used in traffic indictments, just to press the point:

Too fast
Careless (think of the literal meaning of that one!)
Undue
wreckless (ditto)
attention
dangerous

Open to interpretation?
 
Why not start with the 1949 Geneva Conventions which expressly allow physical coercion - even for protected persons. Personally, I'm not to keen on using the US Constitution as a vehicle to undercut the basic protections, as a law and custom of war, for combatants who distinguish themselves from surrounding civilian populations when encountering US forces in an armed conflict.
 
BenBurch said:
Proposed text;

"Physical coercion or threat thereof shall not be used by the United States nor its military forces nor their contractors nor any other third parties reporting to the United States in the questioning of prisoners regardless of their nation of citizenship and regardless of the place or character of their imprisonment. Congress shall make appropriate laws to punish violations of this amendment."
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It is already illegal, so another law making it illegal again will be worth jack doodley squat.

How about focusing your efforts on enforcement of existing laws, electing a congress not filled with chicken-$^# weenies, and appointing a judiciary not filled with partisan hacks.
 
Southwind17 said:
Open to interpretation?
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Yes, very much so. And those interpretations have been hammered out in many, many cases, and I suspect the standards for evaluating those words which apply in different states are probably not the same. And unlike the issue of "coercion", the police officer doesn't risk ruining his life if he incorrectly tickets you for "reckless" (not "wreckless", which would mean without wrecks) driving.
 
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