The United States Federal Criminal Prohibition

 The United States federal criminal prohibition against torture (18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A) prohibits conduct “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” On August 1, 2002, the United States attorney general’s office issued a statement that “severe” pain under the statute was limited to pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” (This interpretation was withdrawn in 2004.) What kind of a definition is this? Is it justified or not? What does this controversy show about the nature and importance of definitions?

2. The definition of “sexual relations” was crucial to the issue of whether President Bill Clinton committed perjury. Find and distinguish the various definitions of “sexual relations” at play in the following selection from President Clinton’s testimony before the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, on August 17, 1998.6 In your opinion, does either President Clinton or the lawyers who are questioning him use definitions improperly? Why or why not?

Mr. President, were you physically intimate with Monica Lewinsky? . . .

When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, I engaged in con- duct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual inter- course. They did not constitute sexual relations as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition. . . .