Torture memos resemble Clarence Thomas' way of thinking - latimes.com

Torture memos resemble Clarence Thomas' way of thinking - latimes.com: "When he was a young Justice Department lawyer, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. argued on behalf of Keith Hudson, the Louisiana inmate who had been punched in the mouth and kicked by a prison guard. A supervisor stood by and told the officers "not to have too much fun." The punches left Hudson with a swollen face, loosened teeth and a cracked dental plate. Roberts argued in 1991 that this unprovoked beating was cruel and unusual punishment, and the high court agreed in a 7-2 decision in Hudson vs. McMillian.

Thomas and Scalia dissented and said Hudson did not have a "serious injury." Justice Harry A. Blackmun took them to task for this view. If adopted, it would "place various kinds of state-sponsored torture and abuse entirely beyond the pale of the Constitution," Blackmun wrote. As examples, he cited "whipping them with rubber hoses, beating them with naked fists, shocking them with electric currents, asphyxiating them short of death, intentionally exposing them to heat and cold, or forcibly injecting them with psychosis-inducing drugs."

The same issue of prison cruelty arose two weeks ago in the case from North Carolina. In a 7-2 decision, with Roberts in the majority, the court revived a suit from Jamey Wilkins, who had filed a handwritten petition to the justices. He had been punched and kicked, but a judge threw out his claim without a hearing because he did not show he had suffered a serious or permanent injury.

The Supreme Court reversed this decision and repeated its view that the use of "excessive physical force" is cruel and unusual punishment if it is malicious and unprovoked.

"I continue to believe Hudson was wrongly decided," Thomas said."