There was video of the abduction. This is very rare.

Even his neighbors didn't recognize him from it, though, until they took a look at it in hindsight. (Saw them interviewed on the Today Show.) The suspect was picked up on other charges. They got him on good police work, without torture, but apparently after the murder was already committed, and perhaps even before he was a suspect in this case. (We'll hear all about it eventually, I'm sure.) Allowing torture in this case would have saved no one, and would have done interesting things to the psyches of the officers doing the torturing.

Considering how many people convicted of capital crimes have been freed by subsequent evidence (or the exposure of suppressed evidence) that proves them not only "not guilty", but innocent, do you really really want to allow law enforcement to torture people just to get them to say stuff?

Are we all aware that, under the conditions of torture, people will admit anything just to make it stop?

Consider the following description: white male, 5'11", 180 lbs., dark hair, wearing white t-shirt, blue jeans, sneakers, red ball cap. Would you want everyone picked up with that description subject to torture to discover a dubious truth? If not everyone, what fraction? How do you say "sorry" to the people tortured wrongly? How do you torture "rightly"?

If we want to make the line between what criminals do and what the police do to go away, by all means, let's torture suspects. It might save a couple of victims. It will make a lot more, and on all of our heads.

We will have to repeal the Eighth, too. Not to mention forgetting all about "innocent until proven guilty" and all that other due process garbage. People are usually in favor of stuff like this if they believe they will never be victims of mistaken identity. But there are no such guarantees.

If we embed cruelty in the mechanics of our society, then cruelty is what we will receive.

Regards--
Mary Anne