See this in the LA Times this morning:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-thomas-yoo7-2010mar07,0,3782840.story
Here's the opening:
Torture memos resemble Clarence Thomas' way of thinking
The Supreme Court justice has a history of dismissing prisoner brutality. And it's his former law clerk who was investigated for authorizing harsh interrogation tactics as a Justice Department lawyer.
By David G. Savage
March 7, 2010
Reporting from Washington
According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a prisoner who was slammed to a concrete floor and punched and kicked by a guard after asking for a grievance form -- but suffered neither serious nor permanent harm -- has no claim that his constitutional rights were violated.
Thomas objected when the high court, in a little-noted recent opinion, said this unprovoked and malicious assault by a North Carolina prison guard amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
The court's decision came a few days after Thomas' now-famous former law clerk John C. Yoo was charged with flawed reasoning, but not professional misconduct, as a Justice Department lawyer when he applied much the same view toward the treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners.