"Under these barbarous circumstances the appellant readily confessed . . ."

Eric Muller asks an important question. If It Was Torture in Mississippi, Then It's Definitely Torture, Right?

He draws our attention to several cases from Mississippi from the 1920's where the confessions of African American suspects were actually thrown out by the Mississippi Supreme Court because the confessions were obtained by the use of waterboarding ("the water cure"). Prof. Muller concludes:

If "the cure" was seen as a barbarous form of torture in Mississippi in the 1920's, I guess I'm at a loss to understand exactly how our attitudes about the process have progressed to see it as an acceptable means of interrogation 80 years later.

We're all at a loss.