When the United States failed Jose Padilla, it failed the Constitution and each and every one of us.

Padilla is the American-born Muslim convert arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting a radioactive attack with al-Qaida.

It's never been proven. Yet Padilla's ordeal shows how terribly wrong things can go when the line between national security and individual rights is ignored.

It's true Padilla was not a model citizen. But he is a U.S. citizen. A citizen for whom all constitutional guarantees — from the presumption of innocence to the writ of habeas corpus — were denied.

Without a trial, he was sent to a military cell in South Carolina as an "enemy combatant" and given treatment strikingly similar to what occurred at Abu Ghraib.

Recently, his lawyers released a shocking video that shows an example of that treatment. Padilla is seen on his way to a root canal. He's shackled and has on goggles and headphones meant to maintain sensory deprivation. His lawyers call it part of his regimen of "torture" that included sleep deprivation and regular drug injections of a "truth serum," LSD and PCP.

After more than three years in captivity, guards report he is now as unresponsive as a piece of furniture. This is no way to treat an American citizen.

Indeed, the Supreme Court ultimately forced the Bush administration to give Padilla a trial set for January. The Fifth Amendment protects even one suspected of a capital crime from being "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Padilla's new charges have no mention of a dirty bomb and instead link him to lesser charges of terrorist activity.

But his lawyers say Padilla's treatment while incarcerated was so severe that he is now unfit to stand trial, his psyche so damaged by deprivation and isolation that he is incapable of defending himself.

The U.S. must not coddle terrorists. But it must always protect our Constitution. Padilla should have been tried early on and — if found guilty — subjected to harsh consequences for his actions. Instead, his case has been an embarrassment.

If this country is to stand for liberty and human rights, it must avoid repeating the ordeal of Jose Padilla.