"A NATION OF LAWS"

Ed Brayton at Despatches From The Culture Wars found the following bit of news: Ordinary people who are convicted of 'torture' --felony torture, defined as inflicting "great bodily injury" for the purpose of "revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose"--are susceptible upon conviction to life imprisonment.

This bit of intelligence was revealed when cops in California busted a couple who would abduct strangers, torture them, rob them, and then release them.

The couple, Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee, and three other people are accused of luring their two victims to an office where the men were tied up, held for hours and beaten, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney said...
Weston, Parmelee and the three other defendants each were charged with two counts of torture, two counts of false imprisonment by violence and two counts of second-degree robbery, according to a criminal complaint filed against them.
...
Each count of felony torture, defined as inflicting "great bodily injury" for the purpose of "revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose," carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Brayton then connects the necessary dots:

So they tie people up and beat them for a few hours and face life in prison for torture. Our government tied people up in stress positions for days at a time, subjected them to hypothermia, waterboarded some people more than a hundred times, engaged in beatings and much worse. And they face....nothing whatsoever. So much for the notion of being a nation of laws.

We must look FORWARD, not BACK!