Editing Murray Rothbard (section)

==== Torture of criminal suspects ====
In chapter twelve of ''Ethics'',<ref name=SelfDefense>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twelve.asp |chapter=Self-Defense |pages=77–84 |author=Rothbard, Murray |title=The Ethics of Liberty |publisher=New York University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8147-7506-6 |access-date=September 13, 2014 |archive-date=September 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914010256/https://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twelve.asp |url-status=live }}</ref> Rothbard turns his attention to suspects arrested by the police.<ref name="Callahan" /> He argues that police should be able to torture certain types of criminal suspects, including accused murderers, for information related to their alleged crimes. Writes Rothbard: "Suppose ... police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; his rights had already been forfeited by more than that extent. But if the suspect is not convicted, then that means that the police have beaten and tortured an innocent man, and that they in turn must be put into the dock for criminal assault".<ref name=SelfDefense/> Gene Callahan examines this position and concludes that Rothbard rejects the widely held belief that torture is inherently wrong, no matter who the victim. Callahan goes on to state that Rothbard's scheme gives the police a strong motive to [[Frameup|frame]] the suspect after having tortured him or her.<ref name="Callahan" />