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BY JAMES TARANTO

The debate over the treatment of terrorist detainees is a highly emotional one, with liberal critics of the Bush administration expressing horror and outrage at the idea that terrorists might have been subjected to aggressive interrogation, which they insist meets the legal definition of "torture." What is behind this emotion? We would like to shoot down one possible explanation: that liberals are more compassionate than conservatives, more sensitive to human suffering.

To make this point, we turn to People v. Caudillo, a case decided in 1978 by the California Supreme Court. It is similar to the current torture debate in that it involved the application of an inexact legal standard to a situation in which a person was treated harshly by another. At the time, the court consisted of two justices appointed by a Republican, Gov. Ronald Reagan, and five appointed by Reagan's Democratic predecessor, Pat Brown, and successor, Jerry Brown. It was the Republicans who sympathized with the victim, while the Democrats took a detached, legalistic approach.

On May 2, 1975, Daniel Caudillo accosted a woman, identified in the decision only as Maria, in an elevator of her apartment complex in Montebello, Calif. Caudillo covered Maria's mouth with his hand and held a carving knife to her throat. She tried to remove the knife, cutting two of her fingers in the process; later he cut her in the back of the neck.

Caudillo demanded to know if Maria recognized him. She did, but claimed she did not. He forced her out of the elevator and into a windowless storage room, where he removed her glasses, ordered her to raise her dress, and fondled her rear end. Eventually he forced her to admit him into her apartment. In explicit and brutal detail, the court describes what happened next:

She was pushed inside and blindfolded. After taking her to the bedrooms, defendant led her to the living room, where Maria heard him unzip his pants. He ordered her to undress. Defendant allowed Maria to keep on her panties, pantyhose and shoes; he directed her to "[t]urn around slowly." Then defendant, seated on the living room sofa, pulled Maria toward him, pushed her to her knees and inserted his penis in Maria's mouth. Maria gagged; she felt like vomiting. Then he ordered her to completely undress.

Defendant compelled Maria to stand, and inserted his fingers in her vagina. He asked her if she could get pregnant; she said she did not think so. Defendant then raped the victim.

Defendant asked Maria if she had a boyfriend. He said: "You better not lie to me. I know everything about you. I know what time you leave for work and I know what time you get home. I have seen you from afar and I have admired you for a long time." Maria stated that she had a boyfriend. Defendant wanted to know if Maria and her boyfriend engaged in sexual activity; Maria did not answer.

Defendant then inserted his penis in Maria's rectum. Maria pulled away, telling defendant she was going to be sick. Maria had diarrhea, and evacuated her bowels twice. Defendant kept insisting that Maria satisfy him.

Defendant again forced Maria to orally copulate him; she gagged and spit. He returned to the theme of whether or not she had recognized him; she continued to tell him she had not.

Defendant raped Maria for the second time, but could not ejaculate. He again forced her to orally copulate him, and ejaculated in Maria's mouth; Maria gagged, spit and vomited. Still not content, defendant again inserted his penis in Maria's mouth, wiping away his victim's vomit.

Finally, defendant pushed Maria to the center of [her roommate] Catherine's bed; Maria was still blindfolded, although loosely. He left the bedroom, returning several times to bring Maria her clothes, purse and wallet. He threw the wallet at her, and ordered her to sit up. Through the blindfold, she examined the wallet; money was missing. Defendant demanded more money, and Maria found more in the wallet, which she gave him. Defendant took it, saying "I'll owe it to you." He told her not to report his sexual attack upon her to anyone. "If you do report it to anyone it will be embarrassing for you only," said defendant. He threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Thereupon defendant departed, taking $60 of Maria's money with him.

One of the issues in the case was whether Caudillo had inflicted "great bodily injury" upon his victim. The two Republican justices, Frank Richardson and William Clark, agreed that he had. Richardson wrote for the two:

The victim was pushed, shoved, cut twice by a knife, raped, sodomized and abused to the point of vomiting, diarrhea and hysteria. Her neck wounds were, respectively, three inches and one and one-half inches long. Under no reasonable view of the evidence could the victim's injuries in this case be deemed either "trivial or insignificant."

By contrast, the notorious ultraliberal Chief Justice Rose Bird--who would be ousted by the voters eight years later for her refusal to uphold death sentences--argued that compassion for Maria had no place in applying this legal standard, and was so eager to make the point that she wrote a separate concurring opinion:

The offenses committed by appellant on the victim in this case were "outrageous, shocking and despicable," as the majority state. . . . However, personal repugnance toward these crimes cannot be a legitimate basis for rewriting the statute as it was adopted by the Legislature. It is precisely because emotions are so easily called into play in such situations that extra precaution must be taken so that this court follows the legislative intent and not our own predelictions [sic] or beliefs.

Our purpose here is not to reargue the legal merits of a nearly 30-year-old case, which in any event has been undone by subsequent legislation and court decisions. It is, rather, to point out that the liberal heart does not bleed indiscriminately, and that often liberal sympathy seems to flow in inverse proportion to that which is deserved.