Torture Outside of the Law
Where We Are
We've now spent two classes discussing torture - whether it is ever morally permissible, and whether regulating it might be a way to minimize it. Dershowitz's view was that torture is wrong but should be legal under certain circumstances and regulated, and so far we've seen Steinhoff's arguments that torture is sometimes permissible. We now turn to Steinhoff's response to Dershowitz.
The Reading
The reading for today is the second half of Steinhoff's Dirty Harry article, which you can again find here. The second half of the article begins in the first full paragraph on page 346, where he turns from the moral question to the legal question. But I recommend that you also re-read Steinhoff's initial discussion of the Dirty Harry case in the first two paragraphs on page 242, and compare it to the final paragraph of the article, where he compares his views about the morality and law of torture.
The Movie
For those (I presume, all) of you who have not seen the original Dirty Harry movie, I’ve included three clips here, to help you get the flavor of the picture that Steinhoff seems to be drawing from that movie, and why it goes into his article title.
In the first clip, titled “Do you feel lucky punk?”, we get a key scene establishing the character of Dirty Harry as a cocky but not very conventional cop. It establishes his character for the movie and its sequels, and sets up the final scene of the movie, which is important for us to understand Steinhoff’s interpretation of the film.
In the second clip, titled “Where is the Girl?”, we see the central act of torture described by Steinhoff in his paper. Dirty Harry confronts the villain in a stadium at night, shoots them, and then grinds his foot into their leg. The camerawork zooming out at the end of the scene sets up a direct comparison to the camera’s zooming out shot at the very end of the movie, at the end of the next and final scene, and in the directly following scene (not part of this YouTube clip), the film cuts to the police locating the kidnapped girl.
Finally, in the third clip, titled “Ending Shootout”, from the very end of the movie, Dirty Harry confronts the main villain for the final time. Pay attention to what Dirty Harry does with his badge at the end, and to how the camerawork echoes the torture scene.