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Under international law, the United States is obligated to criminalize acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. However, the federal criminal torture laws employ several terms whose meanings [...]

ABSTRACT This Article draws upon recent social psychological research to demonstrate the psychological difficulty of distinguishing between torture and enhanced interrogation. We critique the accuracy of evaluations made under the [...]

NOTE CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE LAW'S LATITUDE: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 TO THE PRESENT A. Law and Interrogation: The Central Intelligence Agency The Torture Statute 2. The Fifth Amendment 3. Hamdan [...], Conventional wisdom states that recent U.S. authorization of coercive interrogation techniques, and the legal decisions that sanctioned them, constitute a dramatic break with the past. This is false. U.S. interrogation policy well prior to 9/11 has allowed a great deal more flexibility than the high-minded legal prohibitions of coercive tactics would suggest: all interrogation methods allegedly authorized since 9/11, with the possible exception of waterboarding, have been authorized before. The conventional wisdom thus elides an intrinsic characteristic of all former and current laws on interrogation: they are vague and contestable, and thus, when context so demands, manipulable.

ABSTRACT In the United States, police officers regularly employ deceptive interrogation tactics to extract confession evidence from suspects. Despite widespread recognition of the harm caused by police deception, courts in [...]

CONTENTS I Introduction II The Cover Up: The Administration's Attempt to Pass the Buck A The Schlesinger Report B The Cracks Begin to Appear III A Tale of Two Strands: [...]

CONTENTS I Introduction II The Proscription on Torture and the Memo of 2 December 2002 III The Administration's Narrative A Exploring the Narrative 1 The Presidential Decision that the Geneva [...]

INTRODUCTION I. FIRST-ORDER CONSIDERATIONS: MORAL LIMITS ON COERCIVE INTERROGATION A. On Deontological Grounds, Coercive Interrogation Is Flatly Impermissible B. On Deontological Grounds, Coercive Interrogation Is Impermissible Except to Prevent "Catastrophic [...]