In a weird kind of way I actually sorta agree with Scalia. It isn't that I think the Jack Bauer ticking time bomb scenario is a real one which would ever actually exist except in fiction, but it's reasoning like Scalia's which tells us precisely why we don't actually have to have legally sanctioned torture even if we believed that ticking time bomb scenarios were regular occurrences which could only be triumphed over through the use of torture.
In other words, torture is wrong. We shouldn't torture. There should be no procedures in place for torture. Everyone should understand this. But if the Joker does in fact have a nuclear bomb ready to go off underneath Gotham, and vigilante crime fighter Batman needs to employ a little force to learn the magic code needed to stop it before the timer counts down to zero, then I imagine that if Batman does in fact manage to stop the destruction of the city that no jury would convict or that a presidential pardon would likely take care of things if they did.
Of course the broader point is this is just a stupid fucking conversation to have. No torture.
