Precedent: DOJ Prosecuted Texas Sheriff in 1983 For Waterboarding Prisoners
22 April 2009 8:15 pm by GeoT
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-doj-prosecuted-texas-sheriff-in-1983-for-waterboarding-prisoners.html
In 1983, the Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies for waterboarding prisoners to get them to confess to crimes.
The deputies were sentenced to four years in prison and Parker pleaded guilty to extortion and federal civil rights violations and received a 10-year sentence. Parker admitted that he had operated a “marijuana trap” on U.S. Highway 59, arrested suspects, and, according to court documents, subjected “prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions.
“This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning,” the complaint said, which referred to the technique as “water torture.”
Yet nowhere in the four “torture” memos released by the Justice Department last week that authorized the CIA to waterboard detainees do the attorneys who drafted the legal opinions mention the federal case U.S. v Parker et al, in which San Jacinto County Sheriff James Parker and three deputies– Carl Lee, Floyd Allen Baker and John Glover—were found guilty of torturing at least six prisoners between 1976 and 1980 in a rural part of the state 60 miles outside of Houston.
This post was submitted by GeoT.
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Just flipped by Faux, and some guy gave Bill a run for his money on torture. So much so that Bill said ‘torture my ass’, then asked to have it bleeped. He really got under his skin.
Audiegrl says:
22 April 2009 at 8:21 pm
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Fox News also filed a FOIA request on the “right wing extremists” in the DHS report.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/fox-news-files-freedom-of_n_190290.html
GeoT
I think they should be careful what they ask for. The report might show that their network breeds right wing extremists.
General Karpinsky was great on Olberman BTW, she will be a key witness when the inquiry starts.
Audiegrl says:
22 April 2009 at 8:29 pm
GeoT
I think they should be careful what they ask for. The report might show that their network breeds right wing extremists.
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LOL AG that’s the exact comment I made over at Huff-Po
oh no, now Shep Smith is turning into a lefty about torture
video uses the f-bomb, *not safe for work
http://tinyurl.com/cglrwn
Audiegrl says:
22 April 2009 at 8:55 pm
oh no, now Shep Smith is turning into a lefty about torture
wow! that was not on the air right? that’s some kind of “web only” feed I think.
Yep, it was a webcast. Sorry, I should have said that.
But the right-wingers are pissed.
today has been a pretty amazing video day
Ag that was great. The conservatives are going crazy over this. It’s pretty funny watching all of them fall over themselves screaming that these methods produced good intelligence. Dumb a**es.
I have a feeling there are a ton of people just dying to tell their stories about what happened at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay… The eyewitness accounts will be epic. Cheany and Rumsfeld and crew will have no cover… Bush can claim he was “absent that day” any day, every day.
Not nearly the same thing. 4th and 8th amendments would apply to prisoners, not to suspected terrorists.
And you know what, I think since Cheney thinks it’s okay, maybe they ought to do all the things to him that he okayed to be done at gitmo and Begram. And let’s see if he thinks it’s ok.
Anybody notice that all the usual bigmouth suspects (Cantor, Boener, ect…) have been missing in action for the last two weeks. I think they all ran for cover.
Chris Matthews let it slip the other day, when he asked
What do the republican’s want to be known for…taxes and torture?
Betsy says:
22 April 2009 at 9:18 pm
I bet his wife would volunteer for that job
ogenec says:
22 April 2009 at 9:18 pm
Not nearly the same thing. 4th and 8th amendments would apply to prisoners, not to suspected terrorists.
you missed the point… the precedent was ignored during the writing of the opinions by the Bush gang. Not the same thing? Yes, water torture has always been torture… since ancient times. A new twisted opinion in 2002 is the anomaly.
the floodgates have opened:
Rice, Cheney Approved Waterboarding
Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice verbally OK’d the CIA’s request to subject alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, a decision memorialized a few days later in a secret memo that the Obama administration declassified last week.
The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/condoleezza-rice-cheney-a_n_190340.html
“The narrative also shows that dissenting legal views about the severe interrogation methods were brushed aside repeatedly.”
Karpinski/Olbermann:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWehKYzGJ8M
This is a “must see”
And Ogenec – Bush is the one who issued a “signing” that denied Geneva Convention protections to agressors who are not part of a “state”. The whole distinction between suspected terrorists and “good” people is just another of the bogus “legal” opinions of the Bush administration.
GeoT
This is what Faux News’ FOIA request is all about. They are so obvious.
House GOPers Want Napolitano To Resign Over ‘Extremism’ Report
http://tinyurl.com/d8pe7x
Audiegrl says:
22 April 2009 at 9:56 pm
GeoT
This is what Faux News’ FOIA request is all about. They are so obvious.
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They’re trying to counter punch to deflect attention from the real issue which is torture. Fox is heavily invested in the wingnut element to drive ratings so they’ll go along with it.
AliceP, I agree with that. My point is that the TX prisoner case is not precedent for terrorism suspects. Whether suspects are entitled to Geneva convention or not, they certainly are not entitled to protections of Constitution. Unlike the TX prisoners. Which is why the case is inapplicable.
GeoT says:
22 April 2009 at 10:01 pm
Speak of the devil. Cantor and Boener are supposed to request this from President Obama tomorrow. So look for their stupid faces on TV tomorrow. I should have kept by mouth shut!
ogenec says:
22 April 2009 at 10:03 pm
Which is why the case is inapplicable.
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of course it was applicable. In 2002 they were trying to determine if water boarding was torture and the answer was easily available. It IS torture and always has been and there is no wiggle room. No sneaky twisted legalize to grease the treads… it’s illegal, at Sing Sing or Gitmo.
Audiegrl says:
22 April 2009 at 10:05 pm
they’re just digging a deeper hole… no one is buying it.
GeoT, you can say this until you’re blue in the face, but you’re dead wrong. What was the law that was allegedly broken in the TX case? Don’t know. But we do know that it wasn’t the UN Convention Against Torture — which is what the OLC memos were interpreting — because that law hadn’t been passed yet. That’s a direct quote from the article you linked to.
If you don’t even know what law was supposedly broken in the TX case, how can you stand there and argue that it is relevant to the UN Convention on Torture? It’s a stupid argument.
Your mistake is you keep confusing the moral case — torture is torture — with the legal argument. I agree with you on the moral point. But not at all on the legal front. Anyhoo, no need to further belabor the point.
ogenec says:
22 April 2009 at 10:31 pm
the whole point is they didn’t apply due diligence in 2002. The lawyers were instructed to “come up with” a rationale for what Cheney et al were determined to do regardless and they ignored all previous examples were torture was prosecuted. It’s not apples and oranges, it’s torture at home and torture exported.
good night. TM.com the fog beckons.
The lawyers were instructed to “come up with” a rationale for what Cheney et al were determined to do regardless and they ignored all previous examples were torture was prosecuted.
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Yes, I agree the lawyers were instructed to come up with a rationale. That’s classic Cheney/Addington style. My point is that “torture” within the context of civil rights laws is not the same as “torture” under UN Convention on Torture, at least as far as the law is concerned. Does the civil rights law define torture? Does it have the severity and prolonged mental harm qualifiers that are in the Convention? If not, the precedent is utterly useless as a legal matter.
Good night to you too. The fog may beckon, but I do my utmost to illuminate.
ogenec says:
22 April 2009 at 11:05 pm
Good night to you too. The fog may beckon, but I do my utmost to illuminate.
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No, I meant literally, I took a walk and it’s like pea soup out there.
You know, I respect your opinion, if I haven’t made that clear.
GeoT, I was just kidding with you. No worries
“But we do know that it wasn’t the UN Convention Against Torture — which is what the OLC memos were interpreting — because that law hadn’t been passed yet. That’s a direct quote from the article you linked to.”
After WW2 we were central in the war crimes trials of Japanese military officers and enlisted personnel who were tried, convicted and sentenced to 18 to 60 years in prison for “torture” in the form of waterboarding.