Guantanamoand an old Law and Order

Last week I caught an old Law and Order.  A policeman physically roughed up someone who had claerly kidnapped a young girl.  The clock was ticking, any minute she might have died if the police could not reach her.  At the end, after the girl is found alive and the suspect is convicted.  The defense attorney turns to McCoy, the prosecutor, and says "We're all right with what was done to save the little girl right?" McCoy nodds.  the Defense counsel than asks " What about if the cop had roughed up the kidnappers mother?" Just to go further into a moral morass  supposing he had tortured the suspect's child to get the suspect to talk,   It is the ticking bomb question examined a little more closely.  If it is right to torture someone who endangers others, is it also right to torture someone who has no guilt to get that information?  If torture is justified to save lives, than it should not matter who is tortured.  If torture is a part of the punishment for a crime, should that person be convicted of a crime first?  A policeman, I think in England, maybe Scotland, abused a prisoner who had also kidnapped a child.  He got the information, saved the child, and than turned himself in for judgement under the law.  Outside of fiction these ticking bomb situations are supposedly very rare.  It is one of the best aspects of that show that they often pose serious, thoughtful questions.  I wonder what other viewers thought.  Don't we all feel that an individual should not suffer unjust pain, torture, just because that may serve a higher end or greater good.  Otherwise we are on a very slippery slope to eugenics, euthanasia, and genocide.  The Old Testament lays the sins of the father on to the next seven generations.  Surely we have evolved past that.  If I were faced with the policeman's choice I might abuse the suspect, I would not hurt his mother or child.  But I know it is easy to sit in front of a computer and say confidently what I would do in a life or death situation.  No one can say with certainty without being there.